The Wilhelm Scream Compilation

[DRTYFN]

Damn it, now I'm going to be listening for that damn scream in every movie I watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio

In the 1951 movie Distant Drums starring Gary Cooper, a small band of soldiers were crossing a swamp in pursuit of Seminole Indians. While wading through the Everglades one unnamed soldier was attacked and dragged underwater by an alligator. His last sound as he died was a startled scream.

In The Charge at Feather River two years later, a soldier named Private Wilhelm screamed in what sounded like alligator-assaulted agony when he was struck by an arrow. In fact, his cry of pained surprise was practically identical to unnamed soldier's. Both men would soon be forgotten as a bit parts in B-movies, seen by relatively few moviegoers. But the holler they bellowed went on to be heard by millions? if not billions? of people worldwide.

Most movie studios will add sound effects for a film during post-production, and of course it's not unusual for them to recycle sound effects from their archives. In the case of Distant Drums, six short screams were recorded in a studio and creatively titled "man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams". The fifth take was used for the alligator attack, and the others came in handy to give voice to some Indians shot during a raid.

Following the movie's release, the distinctive scream was placed in the Warner Brothers sound effects library and used regularly in that studio's films. Among many others, it was heard in Them! in 1954, Swiss Family Robinson in 1960, PT-109 in 1963, and The Green Berets in 1968.

Star Wars Stormtrooper does the Wilhelm screamEventually a sound effect aficionado named Ben Burtt noticed the same scream wailing from the speakers of movie after movie. When he made the swashbuckler parody The Scarlet Blade in 1974, he decided he wanted to use the scream, so he lifted it from another film's soundtrack. A few years later, he was hired to handle the sound effects for Star Wars, and during his audio hunting adventures he heard a familiar cry emanate from the Warner Brothers archive: the original Distant Drums scream. Delighted, Burtt began to regularly insert the dramatic outcry into the projects he worked on, including Star Wars. He dubbed it the "Wilhelm scream" in honor of the first named character to use it, and from there it found its way into cinema legend.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=787