The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II, from December of 1944 to January of 1945. It commenced through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front.

 

Last weekend, the battle was staged and performed in Big Lake by actors for an upcoming film called Wunderland.

 

One of those actors setting foot in front of the camera was none other than Academy Award nominee Tom Berenger of Platoon fame.

 

Director Luke Schuetzle wrote the screenplay and on a hunch, decided to send the script to a man who was Berenger’s agent. Berenger was handed the script and after his first reading, signed on to play Major McCulley. 

 

A few years ago, Schuetzle teamed with Andrew Kightlinger to shoot a short or trailer for Wunderland and they entered the short film in local film festivals.

 

Wunderland (short) won the Best in Costuming at the 2012 South Dakota Film Festival and the Best Action/Adventure film at the 2012 Tyler “Shorts” Film Festival.

 

Schuetzle wanted to move ahead with the project to make the full-feature film, Kightlinger decided to bow out. So Schuetzle grabbed the reins and began working on bringing his scripted vision to the big screen.

 

Schuetzle — who also has gone by the name of Steven Luke — has been an actor in 12 films, a writer in seven, a post and pre-production director in two films and has also been a second unit director, location manager, production manager and has done stunts. He is well known for being a historic military technical adviser and supplier for the motion picture and television industries.

 

Schuetzle is a graduate of South Dakota State University, where he pursued  his natural love of acting. His most recent works include Souvenirs (eventually changed to Memorial Day) starring Academy Award nominee James Cromwell and The Deep End, for which he earned a Best Actor recognition at the 2011 Fischgaard Short Film Competition.

 

His work in the short film Paper People, also earned Schuetzle a Best Actor in a Short film, for the 2012 Best Actors in a Film Festival. 

 

Schuetzle is married (Trinity) and they have one daughter.

 

Berenger, at 67, is dubiously far from the early hunky, leading man from movies like The Big Chill (1983), Major League (1989) and Shattered (1991). Today, he bears a weathered face, a higher hairline and a wider waistband but his piercing gaze and “light-up-the-room” smile have not diminished.

 

And neither has his mind.

 

Berenger boasts that he is a U.S. history connoisseur. He has no problem rattling off facts about the country’s beginnings and has an opinion about almost every war the Americans have been involved with.

 

It helps that Berenger has had the privilege of doing a lot of research for roles he has played in the movies he’s starred in. He played Drew in the military coup movie, Dogs of War in 1980. He played Sgt. Barnes in the Vietnam flick, Platoon in 1986. He played a Marine snipe in the three Sniper films (1993, 2002 and 2004). He played Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet in Gettysburg in 1993. He played Teddy Roosevelt in the 1997 Rough Riders TV series. He played Gen. Buck Swain in Diplomatic Siege in 1999.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

Berenger earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Platoon but he says his favorite character he has ever played was Teddy Roosevelt in Rough Riders.

 

“He (Roosevelt) was such a character,” Berenger said. “He was funny, had a photographic memory had an endless curiosity — he was a real challenge to play. I was worn out after playing him.”

 

Berenger was in his mid-40’s when he played the former President.

 

A lot of Berenger’s traits seem to mirror Roosevelts. Tom comes across as intelligent, a good sense of humor and full of energy.

 

“My character in Wunderland is a college-educated man and tough guy and I kinda use the character of my dad in this role,” Tom said. “My dad served in WWII and when he entered the military, he was smart and they moved him up the ranks pretty quickly.”

 

Tom’s dad fought on the Pacific front, not in Europe.

 

He considers Flesh & Blood (1979) as one of his best films.

 

When Tom read the script and saw that the director had a vast knowledge of the weaponry and tactics and machinery — as well as how the characters interacted with each other and spoke — he was impressed with the project and knew he just had to be part of it.

 

“I’ve done a lot of war films like the Mexican-American War, the Spanish War, the Civil War and the Vietnam War,” said Tom. “I really love doing historical pictures and playing real characters in real situations.”

 

Berenger, born as Thomas Michael Moore, grew up in Chicago, IL and graduated from the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism. Tom changed his last name to “Berenger” for professional reasons since there was already a “Tom Moore” in the Actors’ Equity Association. “Berenger” was the last name of an old school friend.

 

Tom’s father was a traveling salesman and also served in WWII. Tom is married (Laura Moretti) and has six children (Allison, Patrick, Chelsea, Chloe, Shiloh and Scout and a step-daughter, Julia.

 

Wunderland follows a squad of U.S. soldiers and their dedicated officer as they fend off the brutal onslaught of German attackers at the Battle of the Bulge.The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard.

 

History shows that American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties for any operation during the war. 

 

The battle, subsequently, also severely depleted Germany's armored forces on the Western Front, and they were largely unable to replace them. German personnel, and later Luftwaffe aircraft (in the concluding stages of the engagement), also sustained heavy losses.

 

The phrase "Battle of the Bulge" was coined by contemporary press to describe the bulge in Allied front lines on wartime news maps and became the most widely used name for the battle.

 

Schuetzle decided to use  the 55-acre property in Big Lake (Jacobsen homestead) because it resembled many of the scenes of the battle including the woods of the Ardennes. 

 

“Travis’ property is ideal because it has the Belgian pines which is what the backdrop was for the Battle of the Bulge,” said Luke.

 

Travis Jacobsen’s property is regularly used for military recreations and is well known for Air-Soft tactical war games played on its rough terrain.

 

“I got a whole bunch of locals working on this film so they are used to this kind of weather,” said Luke. “And the weather we are having here in Minnesota is basically the same kind of weather these soldiers were facing at this same time in 1944.”

 

Schuetzle got most of the main shooting done last March and after last weekend will have a majority of the main filming done. They still plan to do some location shooting in Iowa, Illinois and Pennsylvania over the next few months to complete the principal shooting.

 

The proposed shooting budget for Wunderland is $282,000.

 

“Minnesota has been a great place to shoot and I enjoy coming here,” said Luke.