The Wilhelm Scream: A History

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ‘Wilhelm Scream’, you’re probably not as unfamiliar as you think.

The Wilhelm Scream is a movie sound effect, first used in 1951 on the movie DISTANT DRUMS. The sound was labeled: “man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams”. The sound is named for Private Wilhelm, a character in THE CHARGE A FEATHER RIVER, a 1953 western in which the character is shot with an arrow. This was believed to be the second movie to use the sound effect and its first use from the Warner Brothers stock sound library.

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