Museum is backdrop to gritty film trailer

The trailer to a gritty 1930s-based cop movie will be recorded at the Black Country Living Museum.

The Tipton Road attraction is tomorrow being used to shoot sample scenes from The City Of Hell, a screen adaptation of American author Leslie White's short story.

NK Williams Productions, of Stafford, who have won exclusive rights to make the film, hopes the trailer will be impressive enough to secure funding for the full production. Line producer Alex Szygowski said: "It is a great story which has a cult following in the United States.

"It has already grown in popularity from word of mouth and it keeps getting bigger and bigger with TV actors contacting us to take part."

The museum's marketing manager Emma Middleton said the crew will begin filming when darkness falls. "They are going to film in the village, both inside the houses and in the street," she added.

With a cast of more than 90, the story follows a band of veteran cops who unite to cleanse a city of corruption and violence.

Captain Barnaby and his team of followers take the thugs responsible underground, where no man can escape – The City of Hell.

Alex added: "Our intention is to enter the finished film into the Cannes Film Festival and other big film festivals.

"We believe it will stand out among the competition, not only for its style of lighting, strong story and quality production but also for some outstanding performances."

The museum has already featured in scores of TV shows.

These include Jack The Ripper, Land Girls, Inspector Morse and, more recently, Top Gear star Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections.