You've all heard it but maybe didn't realize how often. Below is Roger Ebert's explanation and a link to a wonderful video on youtube. Someone went through 175 films and condensed all the Wilhelm screams into one video. It gets a bit much after a couple minutes but it's neat nonetheless. There's yet another one below it.
BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC / July 6, 2007
Q. I came across a mention of "The Wilhelm Scream" on Movie City News. Had never heard of it before, but apparently I've heard it -- lots.Laura Hunt, Chicago
A. So have we all. According to Hollywoodlostandfound.net, in Raoul Walsh's "Distant Drums" (1951), screams were recorded for a scene where a man is dragged under by an alligator. The scream was re-used in many other Warner Bros. films, including "Them!" and "PT-109."Sound effects man Ben Burtt noticed that the scream kept turning up, the site says, and "a few years later, when Burtt was hired to create sound effects for "Star Wars" (1977), he had an opportunity to do research at the sound departments of several movie studios. While at Warner Bros. looking for sound elements to use in the space adventure, he found the original "Distant Drums" scream, which he called "Wilhelm" after the character who let out the scream in "Charge at Feather River." Ben adopted the scream as a kind of personal sound signature, and included it in all the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" films, and many of the other films he has worked on including "More American Graffiti" (1979) and "Willow" (1988).Not surprisingly, it has appeared in two Tarantino films, "Batman" films and "Lord of the Rings "films. Wilhelm Scream fans think it's likely the original was screamed by actor Sheb Wooley.
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NPR's On the Media has a great audio segment about the scream. The YouTube clips don't include a Judy Garland movie A Star is Born, where the scream was placed in the middle of a Judy Garland song.
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2005/12/30/06
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