Shropshire Star

Watch: Much Wenlock residents reminisce about their part in 1950s Hollywood blockbuster

A group of Much Wenlock pensioners who were extras in a 1950s film shot in the town have appeared in a documentary about the shooting of the Hollywood production.

Published
The Wenlock Guild Hall film shoot in 1949

Gone To Earth was filmed at various locations around Shropshire, including many key scenes that were shot in Much Wenlock.

The film, by the director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starred Jennifer Jones, David Farrar and Cyril Cusack and was released in UK cinemas in 1950, but came out in the United States under the title The Wild At Heart.

David Farrar starred

The film centres on Hazel Woodus, a gypsy child in the Shropshire countryside in 1897, who is torn between the local squire and the local Baptist minister.

Most of the film was shot on location at sites around Much Wenlock during 1949, with many locals recruited as extras and paid £1 a day, including the choir from a local Methodist church.

A screening of Gone To Earth took place in Much Wenlock in October, when some of the original extras in the film attended as part of a celebration into the work of neo-romantic film-makers Powell and Pressburger.

Now a 15-minute documentary featuring several residents from the town who appeared in the film has been released as part of British Film Institute's Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger.

The documentary is available to watch here: