Parece que o grito de Wilhelm começou como uma piada interna, talvez um ovo de páscoa. No entanto, ao longo dos anos, tornou-se uma bola de neve, gerando mais e mais filmes que incorporam o pouco de áudio.

Bateria distante

O grito foi usado pela primeira vez no filme de 1951 Distant Drums , como um efeito sonoro para alguém estar comendo por um crocodilo:

Pretend an alligator just bit off your arm. Now scream. That's what a voice actor did to overdub a shriek for the 1951 film Distant Drums.
_{Cue the Scream: Meet Hollywood’s Go-To Shriek}

Ator de voz do grito

Sobre o suspeito dublador do grito, a wikipedia relata o seguinte:

Research by Burtt suggests that Sheb Wooley, best known for his novelty song "The Purple People Eater" in 1958 and as scout Pete Nolan on the television series Rawhide, is likely to have been the voice actor who originally performed the scream. This has been supported by an interview in 2005 with Linda Dotson, Wooley's widow. Burtt discovered records at Warner Brothers from the editor of Distant Drums including a short list of names of actors scheduled to record lines of dialogue for miscellaneous roles in the movie. Wooley played the uncredited role of Private Jessup in Distant Drums, and was one of the few actors assembled for the recording of additional vocal elements for the film. Wooley performed additional vocal elements, including the screams for a man being bitten by an alligator. Dotson confirmed Wooley's scream had been in many Westerns, adding, "He always used to joke about how he was so great about screaming and dying in films." Despite the usage of the sound, no royalties are paid.
_{Wikipedia - Wilhelm Scream}

Star wars

Foi por um longo tempo, até que o designer de som Ben Burtt tropeçou na gravação original. Ele então usou isso em uma cena em Star Wars, em que Luke Skywalker atira um Stormtrooper fora de uma borda. <. / p>

O começo dos ovos de páscoa

Segundo relatos, Ben Burtt continuou a usar esse efeito sonoro como uma espécie de pequena linha vermelha ao longo de sua carreira. Como retirado de sua página na Wikipédia:

Burtt has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed "the Wilhelm scream" in many of the movies he's worked on. Taken from a character named "Wilhelm" in the film The Charge at Feather River, the sound can be heard in countless films: for instance, in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when a stormtrooper falls into a chasm and in Raiders of the Lost Ark when a Nazi soldier falls off the back of a moving car.

Um desses exemplos pode realmente ser uma referência à gravação original, já que é usada em uma cena de Indiana Jones e o Templo da Perdição , quando alguém está sendo comido por um crocodilo mais uma vez.

Piada interna

O uso dessa peça original de áudio acabou se tornando uma piada interna , usada por 372 filmes e contando .

Na seguinte transmissão de rádio, uma entrevista com Stephen Altobello , editor de som no Spin Cycle Post em Nova York, Afirma-se que usar o áudio também é uma maneira de "marcar seu filme, de autografar o som".

STEPHEN ALTOBELLO: 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 sound track too. You're like oh, my God, that's a big - that's a huge ridiculous scream there, but it works. They always find the right spot, the right frame.

DAVID SERCHUK: Sound editors like Anderson and Altobello say that often when directors notice The Wilhelm they demand it be pulled. But it seems it's become almost an obsession for Altobello, and frequently the first thing he looks for in a new project is "The Wilhelm Moment."

STEPHEN ALTOBELLO: 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."

Eles continuam explicando que especificamente o uso em A Star is Born é a razão para suas homenagens, não tanto quanto os filmes de Ben Burtt:

STEPHEN ALTOBELLO: 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.