The 12 Feb 1921 Motion Picture News reported that director Wallace Worsley was shooting exteriors that week in San Francisco, CA. The following week, William A. Pinkerton, son of famous detective Allan Pinkerton who founded the Pinkerton Detective Agency, consulted with Worsley at the Goldwyn studios on the criminal underworld and police procedures, according to the 19 Feb 1921 Motion Picture News.
       The working title of this film was Flower of Darkness.
       The New York State Picture Commission banned The Night Rose from being screened in the state. N.Y. Deputy Attorney General Rose contended that the film “would corrupt morals and incite crime...and lacks a lesson, moral or otherwise, in the whole exhibition,” the 26 Nov 1921 Exhibitors Trade Review reported. Rose listed the commission’s reasons: “First, and predominant, is a strong personality, living a life of crime and immorality in such a manner as to effectively evade the punishment due him under the laws of organized society. Second, this man meets death at the hands of his mistress and she is unpunished for the murderous act. Third, there is portrayed a cold, unnatural, inhuman mother. Fourth, the method of exercising a strong mind and personality over the weak is exhibited in O’Rourke using Jimmy as one of his criminal tools. Fifth, the police force of a city is bribed, intimidated and held up in scorn. Sixth, the now extinct ‘Barbary Coast’ and equally extinct ‘Black Mike’s Cafe,’ samples of the worst type…are revived in forms revolting in decent minds. Seventh, young girls, apparently nude, in suggestive and passionate poses and dances.” Rather than demand that certain objectionable scenes be excised, the commission condemned the entire film. In a petition to the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court seeking a reversal of the decision, Goldwyn Pictures’ attorney, Gabriel L. Hess, argued that The Night Rose was no more morally reprehensible than William Shakespeare’s Othello. Furthermore, the commission’s outright ban did not allow for the studio to make corrections, and therefore Goldwyn would lose “not less than $40,000” in revenue on the $200,000 film. Also, the commission’s decision could have a ripple effect in other parts of the country. The appellate court upheld the commission’s decision, according to the 10 Aug 1922 FD, and Goldwyn was forced to re-edit, write new sub-titles, and rename the film Voices of the City before it could open at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway in New York City. A review of Voices of the City in the 20 Aug 1922 FD acknowledged that the studio “removed the objectionable bits, suggestions of white slave trafficking, etc, and there is nothing strictly offensive remaining in the picture.” However, “the story has become somewhat disjointed and illogical as well as rather hard to follow,” and was therefore “at best, only mildly entertaining.” Actor Lon Chaney's “O'Rourke” character, renamed “Duke McGee,” was diminished by his “acting bits [being] largely eliminated.i”
       The film opened in Chicago, IL, as The Night Rose, without alteration, on 23 Jan 1922, according to the 4 Feb 1922 Exhibitors Herald.
       The Jun 1922 issue of The Educational Screen listed The Night Rose as one of the year’s “Ten Worst Productions (of those reviewed so far).” It called the film a “Poorly written melodrama. Purposeless. Distinctly immoral."