If you enjoy action and sci-fi movies, you’ve heard it. That high-pitched scream when some poor sap falls, is shot, impaled, bitten. Know what I’m talking about yet? Yes, you do. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas use it all the time. It has a name. It’s the Wilhelm Scream. You can hear it here.
The Wilhelm Scream was born the same year I was: 1951. It’s attributed to an actor named Sheb Wooley, and was first used Gary Cooper movie, Distant Drums. The actor was directed to scream as if he was being devoured by an alligator. It became part of the sound effects library, and was used fairly frequently. It gained wide (inescapable) notice when Ben Burtt used it in Star Wars. It was Burtt who researched the origin of the scream; he nicknamed it the Wilhelm Scream. It had come to his attention in a western entitled Charge At Feather River, where it was used to dub a scream for a character named Wilhelm when he was hit by an arrow. The name stuck, and more and more directors used it as an inside joke. It has since been used in over 300 movies, both trash and…elevated trash.
For a YouTube compilation of the scream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YDpuA90KEY
Nuance Cubed 