-
First usage of the Wilhelm Scream
The film "Distant Drums" is released. In one scene, a soldier is attacked by alligators while retreating through the Everglades. Afterwards, the scream was recorded to make it sound like "a man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams" (Hutchinson). Six screams were recorded in one take, and the fifth scream became the famous Wilhelm Scream (Lee). The voice of the scream is Sheb Wooley's, famous for singing "Purple People Eater" .The scream was then added to the Warner Bros. sound library. -
Period: to
The scream appears in other WB films
Up until the mid-70's, the recording was only used in Warner Bros. films, including "Them!", "Land of the Pharaohs", and "The Sea Chase" (Lee). One of the films was "The Charge at Feather River", which will soon be the inspiration for the name of the scream. Although used in all of these films, the scream was just a normal sound effect, and wasn't regarded as special or unique (Hutchinson). -
USC film students use the scream
In the early 1970's, a group of film students at the University of Southern California (including future sound designer Ben Burtt) noticed that the scream kept popping up in many of the films they had watched. They decided to put the scream into one of their own films, a swashbuckler parody "The Scarlet Blade", as a joke (Lee). -
The Wilhelm Scream first appears in Star Wars
Ben Burtt was hired to work on "Star Wars" as a sound designer (Lee). He decided to use the scream in the movie, and named it the Wilhelm Scream after Private Wilhelm, a character who utters the scream after being shot by an arrow in "Charge at Feather River" (Snyder). -
Period: to
The Wilhelm Scream quickly gains iconic status
Burtt would go on to use the Wilhelm scream in every other Star Wars movie (Hutchinson). Burtt's friend and colleague Richard Anderson also began using the scream in his own films (Lee). Some of the most notable earlier films that began to use the scream have been marked on the timeline. The Wilhelm Scream has become one of the most widely used and recognizable sound effects in the history of cinema, having been used in almost 400 films (DeLong). -
-
-
-
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ('92) AND Return of the King ('93)
1: A Rohan soldier is killed by an Uruk-hai and falls off the wall.
2: Legolas pushes a soldier off of an Oliphaunt, and when a Nazgul on a Fell Beast picks up and throws a soldier during Battle of Osgiliath -
-
Titanic
After striking the iceberg, water splashes inside the ship and hits some crew members. -
Star Wars retires the Wilhelm Scream
It was announced that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" will be the last Star Wars film to use the scream (Kurp). However, the Wilhelm Scream has shown no signs of going away just yet. It's been used in countless other films since the announcement, including Avengers: Infinity War, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
