Once You Hear the Wilhelm Scream, You Can’t Unhear It

You’ve heard of The Scream, the famous painting by Edvard Munch. But do you know about the other famous scream? The one you’ve probably heard dozens of times without ever realizing it was the same sound? A handful of Hollywood sound people have been passing this scream around for generations, slipping it into movies while the rest of us watched completely unaware. Once I tell you what it is, you’ll start noticing it everywhere.

Somebody gets thrown off a cliff, shot with an arrow, knocked off a horse or otherwise has a really bad day, and suddenly you hear it: “AAAAAAAHHHHH!” At first, it sounds like just another movie scream. Then you learn that filmmakers have been using this particular recording over and over again, and suddenly your ears start looking for it. The next thing you know, you’re watching the movie and wondering if the guy falling off the building is about to give you the Wilhelm.

The sound goes back to the 1951 Warner Bros. movie Distant Drums, during a scene in which a soldier is dragged into a stream by an alligator. The recording was kept in Warner Bros.’ sound library and eventually found its way into other productions. It picked up the name Wilhelm from Private Wilhelm, a character in the 1953 western The Charge at Feather River, who gets shot with an arrow and lets out the distinctive cry.

Then came Ben Burtt, the sound designer who worked on Star Wars. While digging through the Warner Bros. sound archives, Burtt found the old recording and put it to work. You can hear it when a Stormtrooper takes that spectacular tumble in the original Star Wars. Burtt didn’t create the scream, but he helped turn an obscure piece of studio audio into one of Hollywood’s most recognizable sound effects.

Other sound designers caught on, and the Wilhelm became a running gag and an inside joke among people working behind the scenes. Raiders of the Lost Ark used it during the famous truck chase, and it continued appearing in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Eventually it popped up in Reservoir Dogs, Batman Returns, The Lord of the Rings, The Incredibles, Cars, Madagascar, Transformers and plenty of other movies. What started as something only filmmakers noticed eventually became a game for the audience, too.

The voice is generally attributed to actor Sheb Wooley, who appeared in Distant Drums and was known for his distinctive voice. The recording became part of the Warner Bros. sound library, so filmmakers could pull it out whenever somebody needed to have a particularly bad day. Whether Wooley received money from every later use is much less clear, and there isn’t enough evidence to claim he collected a royalty every time the scream appeared.

And honestly, if Sheb Wooley’s estate isn’t collecting money every time that scream gets pulled out of the Hollywood vault, that’s a screaming shame. One little recording has been heard in hundreds of movies, survived for generations and became far more famous than anybody could have imagined when it was recorded.

If I didn’t get paid every time somebody used my scream, I’d scream too.

AAAAAAAHHHHH!

The exact number of appearances is also difficult to pin down. Guinness World Records has documented at least 133 movies in its record tracking, while other sources put the number above 400. The difference comes down to how appearances are counted, but either way, that’s an impressive run for one short recording.

And now comes the curse. Once somebody points the Wilhelm scream out to you, your brain starts listening for it. You’re watching Star Wars, Indiana Jones or some completely unrelated action movie, somebody goes flying through the air, and suddenly you’re thinking, “Was that it?” You have become the person who notices the ketchup bottle in the background.

The Wilhelm scream started as a forgotten piece of studio audio and became a Hollywood running joke that eventually escaped into the audience. It was never supposed to become famous, but somehow one old recording ended up with a career spanning generations.

And now that you’ve heard it, good luck watching a movie ever again.

Further Reading

• The Wilhelm Scream: The History of Film’s Most Popular Sound Effect
• Most Common Sound Effect in Films
• How the Wilhelm Scream Became Hollywood’s Ultimate “Secret” Sound Effect

Tony M.

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