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TAUNTON - Army soldiers walk the grounds with weapons at the ready. Prisoners in striped concentration camp uniforms, their eyes askance, enter a closed off space.

Then, in the heart of the huge, old Whittenton Mills complex - over some 100,000 square feet set aside by the owner for a major film company to store props and supply caterers to feed hundreds of movie extras, staff, crew, make-up people, costumers and security - they break for lunch.

Bright yellow signs have been posted along Bay Street since March 5, directing extras to "Ashe Camp."

For a solid week, the silver screen has invaded The Silver City.

Paramount Pictures and famed director Martin Scorsese have come to Taunton for a week to film scenes for the movie "Ashecliffe." Those signs direct you to a base camp of trailers, which is being run like a real military base camp with security letting precious little in or out. "Ashecliffe," stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo and Michelle Williams. Based on the book "Shutter Island," by Dennis Lehane, the story is set in a mental institution in the 1950s.

There are many flashbacks in the story to a German extermination camp, and the Whittenton Mills complex - with its antiquated industrial look, its sealed-off back area and woods - was chosen among hundreds of similar mills in this region as a replica of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most nefarious of Nazi concentration camps in Poland.

This film odyssey began last fall when someone at Paramount called Dick Shafer, the city's economic development director (who also happens to dabble in acting), asking about the complex which they had seen somehow on the Internet.

Shafer got them in touch with David Murphy, managing partner of Hamilton Development Partners LLC and owner of the complex.

"Their location department people called Dick and he called me and said, 'I know you've been looking to rent at Whittenton Mills.' He thought it would be a good fit and he was right,' " Murphy said. "They looked at so many buildings in so many towns. It was just lucky for us they were looking for a building they could section off.

"They needed privacy to shoot in the back of the building and they needed woods behind that. There are no houses there, and so it was just what they wanted to replicate a prison camp."

In December, Murphy showed Scorsese the property, along with his director of photography and members of his inner circle.

"That's when he decided to go with it," said the delighted owner of the 175-year-old, 42-acre complex of buildings.

On Monday, you could hear the distinct popping sounds of various blank guns being fired and echoing over Bay Street as Scorsese directed a scene.

More than 20 crates of weapons have been delivered to the Taunton police station since March 7, headed for the closed set. As an added precaution, Taunton police helped to escort the weapons to the set, as well as firing them in tests. The shoot requires an astounding 600 extras, and Mayor Charles Crowley - who has been a great advocate for the project - was very happy that so many of them were local faces.

Among the many soldiers and prisoners are people who live in the Whittenton section of the city, members of the city's police force, some Coyle and Cassidy High School students, and somebody's daughter, sister, father, brother or friend.

"It's great to have it filming here in the city, and the fact we have local folks in it as well," said Shafer, who let all of his friends and fellow actors know about the casting call through the city's Art Collaborative after he got final approval of the location.

"The best part of it is, a lot of local citizens are taking part in the movie," said a very busy Crowley. "They may get 10 minutes of fame, but they'll get 10,000 stories to last a lifetime."

Crowley launched the city into action to accommodate Scorsese and has visited the set several times. He understands how "time is money," given that Scorsese only has a week to shoot in the city.

Locals have marveled at the efficiency, the dozens of trailers parked all over the closed lot, as well as that 100,000 square feet set aside inside for caterers to set up lunch in the halls for all those extras, staff and crew.

The 20 to 25 tenant companies within the mill complex have tried to conduct business as usual.

"I've been down there two or three times a week, and the tenants and I are very careful not to interfere with the goings on," Murphy said.

He is hopeful that exposure of the site will bring more tenants.

Crowley is hopeful that a successful shoot will bring more film crews from Hollywood to Taunton.

"We are really hoping this shows Taunton in a really good light, so that other films and other businesses will come into the area and use our buildings or somebody else's," Murphy said. "The Mayor has been really great at seeing this as an opportunity to showcase this city."

After all, according to several Internet sources, the last major Hollywood movie shot in Taunton was "Johnny Eager."

That starred Lana Turner and Robert Taylor in 1942.

JAMES A. MEROLLA can be reached at 508-236-0431 or at jmerolla@thesunchronicle.com.