You've heard it dozens of times over the years in movies, video games and TV shows: a guy gets shot, thrown, falls, or gets blown up, and he lets out a scream. You've probably never realized that most of the time it was all the same guy screaming. "The Wilhelm Scream" has had a cult following among Hollywood directors and sound editors since it was first used in the 1950's, becoming something of an inside joke among filmmakers, especially George Lucas and Skywalker Sound, who've used the scream in every
Star Wars movie made.
Originally used in the 1951 film
Distant Drums when a man crossing a stream is bitten by an alligator and dragged underwater (a perfectly good excuse for a guy to scream), the sound effect got its name from its second use two years later when Pvt. Wilhelm takes an arrow to the thigh in
The Charge at Feather River [pictured]. The scream has been attributed to actor and singer Sheb Wooley, most known among people not in The Business for his 1958 song, "Purple People Eater".
According to
HollywoodLostAndFound.net, Ben Burtt, creator of sound effects for
Star Wars, noticed the effect reoccurring in a lot of movies while a student at USC. He later adopted it as a personal sound signature, including it, not only in every
Star Wars movie made, but all the
Indiana Jones films as well, starting the tradition that continues today.
Many sound editors and directors have also become fans and have found ways to work the scream into their projects. Not surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino is a huge fan and The Wilhelm can be heard in
Reservoir Dogs and
Kill Bill: Vol 1, among others.
Over the last 55 years it has been used in over 135 widely diverse projects, including
Swamp Thing,
Poltergeist,
Howard the Duck,
Beauty and the Beast,
Toy Story,
Batman Returns,
The Fifth Element,
Sin City,
Spider-Man,
Lord of the Rings,
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and recently,
Transformers. So the next time you're watching an action flick and someone is about to get shot or fall off of something high, listen for Sheb and his infamous scream. Chances are someone on the production team is a fan and is keeping the tradition alive.
The two videos below are compilations of some of the earliest and most famous uses, and you can find a
complete, up-to-date list of uses here.