A Catalogue of Useless Facts

The Wilhelm Scream

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The Wilhelm Scream
- history / theatre -

​​The "Wilhelm scream" is a widely-known sound effect originally recorded for "Distant Drums", a 1951 film set in 1840s Florida. A scene where a character is attacked by an alligator is the first movie usage of the famous scream. The effect's namesake is Pvt. Wilhelm, a character who was dispatched by an arrow in the 1953 movie "The Charge at Feather River".

The Wilhelm scream was absorbed into Warner Brothers' stock sound archive until it was brought back into prominence by sound designer Ben Burtt, who employed the scream in the first "Star Wars" movie. Burtt would go on to include the effect in every subsequent "Star Wars" movie, as well as numerous other projects.

Now something of an industry in-joke, the Wilhelm scream has been used in more than two-hundred films to date.

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Sources ▼

https://mentalfloss.com/article/60236/where-did-wilhelm-scream-come-and-why-do-s...