Todd Manley and Brett Hecksher look the part in their oversized suits, overcoats, fedoras and two-tone shoes.

Manley plays the role of Buck Barrow. Hecksher portrays William Deacon “W.D.” Jones. Before the day is over, the students from Missouri Southern State University will help re-enact the bloody gunplay that left two local lawmen dead and both of their characters wounded.

A crew working for the British Broadcasting Corp. and National Geographic is filming a 60-minute documentary about Bonnie and Clyde that will feature a segment on the shootout 75 years ago at a garage apartment the gangsters rented near 34th Street and Oak Ridge Drive in Joplin.

"It’s a great opportunity,” said Manley. “We sent our bios to them at the beginning of November and learned about two weeks ago that we had been cast for the parts. Not only will this look good on our resumes, we’re getting paid.”

Manley and Hecksher do not have speaking parts.

“A dramatization is what we are doing,” Manley said. “Our scenes will be voiced over.”

Manley and Hecksher, both junior theater majors, filmed scenes involving a speeding 1934 Ford Deluxe Sedan on dusty roads near Shoal Creek and Diamond. The next day the filming shifted to the garage apartment where the shootout took place on April 13, 1933. The apartment, now owned by the Rev. Phillip McClendon, of Joplin, has been restored with typical furnishings from the period.

The shoot featured two cars - a 1929 Model A Ford and a 1934 Chevrolet coupe, owned by Gary Hall, of rural Joplin. A 1934 Ford sedan, similar to the one in which Bonnie and Clyde were killed in an ambush at Arcadia, La., also was featured. The sedan is owned by Jim Knight, of Franklin, Tenn., who wrote a 2003 book on the gangsters, “Bonnie and Clyde: A 21st Century Update.”