In Warner Bros. 1951 classic “Distant Drums”, a man is eaten by an alligator. Obviously, he screams. The scream was recorded after the movie was shot, and it (along with several other takes) was archived in their SFX library in case they ever wanted to use it again. And again. And again. It began to pop up in a lot of movies, so many that when Ben Burtt was looking for sounds to use in “Star Wars”, he came across the sample and decided to use it (and some of the other takes) in every movie he worked on. It (and all the other takes) has become known as the “Wilhelm”, named for Pvt. Wilhelm in 1953′s “The Charge at Feather River” who lets out the scream when he takes an arrow to the knee. (OK, technically it was his thigh, but I couldn’t pass up a good meme.) It shows up in all of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, the second and third installments of Lord of the Rings, and countless other movies. Ben Burtt has “retired” it’s use, but as long as people die in movies and film history buffs work in ADR, the Wilhelm will live forever.
Nobody knows for sure who’s voice it actually is, but Burtt managed to track down some old notes from the editors of “Distant Drums”. He’s reasonably sure it was none other than Sheb Wooley, who recorded the hit “Purple People Eater” in 1958.
If you can afford 9KB without blowing your data cap, click the link for a sample.
WilhelmScream (MP3)
that… was it?
/goes off in search of The Professor for some grumbling lessons
in all fairness, what were you expecting?
Well, I was expecting more than a second…
(similar to the comment made by the girlfriend of a buddy of mine in college. Though she was hoping for more than 3 seconds…)
For me, decades of dealing with the administrations of several universities was key to developing my demeanor. Having to put up with endless back-stabbing, thieving, "colleagues" and students with pretensions of intellect has honed it fine.
I am able to pick that scream out of a ton of movies. I always thought it originated from Jedi during the Sarlac scene.
There is a woman screaming in Dawn of the Dead (Remake) that is used in a ton of movies as well. No matter how serious the scene when I hear her or our friend up there, I laugh pretty hard.
Here is the footage from youtube of the the first WIlhelm scream. [youtube dc5F2C0CYlA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc5F2C0CYlA youtube]
Oh, the horror. They ate his hat.
I'm wondering if that scream was used in any of the old Warner or MGM animations. Nothing immediately comes to mind, but I'll have to listen more closely.
I'm betting it was used in Warner Bros. cartoons. Bugs Bunny and the lot.
Let's ask a better question here in the comments. Why did this scream become so ubiquitous. Is it because of how it was recorded? Was there something done differently on this movie?
While not inclusive of everything, I did find these.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f90_1288481762&…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxALy22utc
HTML > me so if someone wants to embed them, it would be appreciated
[youtube _PxALy22utc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxALy22utc youtube]
I think there's a lot more sound effects with equal prevalence. There's another very common scream that I used to think was the one people were talking about when they were talking about this, and a creaky door sound that's nearly ubiquitous. Besides that, I've noticed a panther growl from Pitfall (this one), a fireball fwoosh from Red Alert, and a dragon roar from WarCraft II in any number of other situations. The last one is often used as 'a fighter jet has just flown past', which I always find funny.
Probably none of those are the original source, but video game sound effects are heard over and over, so that's where I recognize them from.
IMDb lists 159 instances of the "WS"