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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is On the Media's Midweek Podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. When two blockbuster movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer, premiered in U.S. theaters on the same day in July, it ushered in a renewed enthusiasm for the double feature and...
their internet love child, Barbenheimer, was born. Ah, the joy of being culturally united by a big movie event. For this midweek pod, we're returning to a very old on-the-media piece about a sound that many moviegoers have heard, perhaps without realizing it, because it's lived such a long and storied life on the silver screen.
Here's David Surchuk, formerly of On The Media, with the story of the scream heard round the world.
The Wilhelm has punctuated the death and dismemberment of dozens of characters in some 20 to 25 movies, particularly in those associated with George Lucas. Prior to being adopted by the Lucas team in 1977, The Wilhelm got its shot in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch in 1967 and co-starred with Judy Garland in 1954's A Star is Born. It even appeared in John Wayne's gritty drama The Green Berets in 1968. The Wilhelm!
That's what a total bomb is through, backwards! After the Green Berets, the Wilhelm went on sabbatical until it was revived in Star Wars. It appears in the scene where Luke and Leia bravely blasted stormtroopers from across a bottomless pit in the Death Star. Right before our heroes swing across, young Skywalker shoots a stormtrooper who falls both into the depths and Hollywood history. Ah! Ah!
The Wilhelm is also in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. In this film, the Wilhelm again marks the falling death of a bad guy. The Wilhelm comes into play this time while Indiana Jones fights off Nazis while simultaneously driving a truck. All the commotion causes one poorly balanced Nazi to fall out. Ah!
But The Wilhelm has graced smaller films as well. Prior to its use in these hits, it gave years of service to such B-movie classics as 1954's Them, where it punctuated James Whitmore's death in the mandibles of a giant ant. But The Wilhelm's work in Them was not finished, for it also became the death knell of an army private later in the film. Ah!
The Wilhelm was popularized in name by Ben Burtt, the Oscar-winning sound editor for Star Wars, says Richard Anderson, sound editor and president of Weddington Productions in North Hollywood.
Anderson worked with Burt on both Star Wars and Raiders, placing the Wilhelm in the latter film. He said Burt, an old-time Hollywood film buff, was inspired to track the sound to its roots, after noting how frequently it occurred in his favorite B films. The earliest film that he had noticed that it was in was a film called Charge at Feather River, which was made in 1953, I believe. There's
There's a character in the movie named Wilhelm, and at one point in the movie, he's riding along and an arrow flies in and hits him in the leg, at which point he does this now-famous scream. Wilhelm! Yeah, I'll just fill my pipe! Ah!
Anderson adds that Burt was eventually able to track the first use of the Wilhelm to an even earlier film. While at Warner Brothers, he ultimately found the original source recording of it under the title Man Being Eaten by Alligator. It turns out that this film was a 1951 film called Distant Drums, directed by Raoul Walsh and starred Gary Cooper.
The Wilhelm also surfaced in the 1955 film In the Land of the Pharaohs, where it is again used by a character battling a large reptile, in this case, a crocodile. Except this time, it comes from inside the crocodile after the character is eaten.
Rick Hinson, president of the Motion Picture Sound Editors, showed a short compilation of films with the Wilhelm at the MPSE Golden Reel Awards last spring. Hinson says part of the attraction of the Wilhelm is that it helps sound editors personalize their projects, even if no one notices it but them or other sound editors. I think it's very much a sense of marking your film, of autographing the sound on it. Steve Altabello, sound editor at Spin Cycle Post in New York, said,
has used the Wilhelm in three films, including the Jay-Z documentary Backstage. He says part of the pleasure in using the Wilhelm is that it doesn't fit naturally into the small, independent films he mostly works on. I don't want to say it's a stupid sound, but it's ridiculous. It's certainly extremist. You watch it once, and you don't know it's there. You're like, okay, this scene's fine. But when you watch it knowing it's there, it really does leap out of the soundtrack, too. You're like, oh my God, that's a big...
That's a huge, ridiculous screen there, but it works. They always find the right spot, the right frame. Sound editors like Anderson and Altaballo say that often when directors notice the Wilhelm, they demand it be pulled.
but it seems it's become almost an obsession for Altibello. And frequently, the first thing he looks for in a new project is the Wilhelm moment. I've even tried to mix it in, like, mix it into a track so that it can't be removed. Like, if you want this car sound on that TV set, you gotta have the scream. I can't even turn, you know, and I act stupid, like, well, I don't know, that's just part of it, you know? I tried to get it into an HBO after-school special about not using drugs, but the filmmaker pulled it out.
I tried to get it into a film called Chicago Cab.
And they were like, you've got to be kidding me. Altabello and Henson both admire how the Wilhelm infiltrated A Star is Born. In fact, they each cited it as their favorite use of the sound. Altabello even went so far as to say he uses it as an homage to that movie rather than the Lucasfilms. Whoever put it in the movie in the background for one scene, that's fine. That was probably expected. But whoever found a way to weasel it into the arrangement of a Judy Garland song...
That's somebody who really pulled off the ultimate, I think, because the movie stops and it's the only thing that's happening. I'll never be able to pull that off. Somewhere, there's a someone, somewhere, someone, somewhere.
Rick Hinson, of the MPSE, added that another creative application of the Wilhelm is in the 1995 Disney film A Goofy Movie. This use is especially interesting, he said, because Goofy himself has his own signature yodel that in the fashion of the Wilhelm has been used in many other Disney films. The Wilhelm appears this time as Goofy carelessly drives into the ladder of some characters working on a roadside. The map will guide us straight and through.
Roxanne, please don't forget me. I will return someday. Though I may be in traction when I do. You'll be a man.
In addition to being goofy, however, Altabello finds the continued use of the Wilhelm somewhat disturbing. He says it's intriguing and spooky that this sound continues to be used years after the original unknown actor has probably passed on. It was one guy who really did this for whatever reason. It could have even been a sound editor. It could have been vocal talent that was hired. Did it 50 years ago.
And it's still floating around. It's a really creepy concept. I always wondered about people who were relatives of, like, the woman whose voice is on At the Tone, The Time Will Be. I always thought, well, what if that's some guy's, like, ex-girlfriend or something, and he just calls and listens to the time? Whatever the fate of the original actor who voiced the Wilhelm, this scream of death has plenty of life left.
In addition to its recent use in the trailer for Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, shooting is currently underway for Episode II. And if Episode II doesn't do so well, maybe George Lucas would consider a remake of Charge at Feather River. If he does, it's a safe bet they'll know which sound to start with. For On The Media, I'm David Serchuk.
Thanks for tuning into this week's Midweek Podcast. Check out The Big Show for more stories about sound. I'm Brooke Lightstone.
