Brian’s Blog

We recently watched the Tooth Fairy with The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, in a tutu of all things. Really what have things come to? I had read that there was a wilhelm in the movie and diligently sat through the whole thing until it appeared in Chapter 24 during the end credits.

I’ve hit a major milestone in my collection of Wilhelm screams - scream number 100! We explicitly watched Dante’s Peak to find this one. Well, I was also interested in seeing the Pacific Northwest and particularly enjoyed the scenes that included Mount Saint Helens crater. The scream appears in Chapter 31.

I had actually stopped renting movies just to find Wilhelms.  I think I’d reached the bottom of the barrel and anything else I need to rent is really unappealing.  So it was a great surprise to find one in Juno of all places!

Juno isn’t the first film to include the Wilhelm in a movie within the movie.  I believe Poltergeist, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, and an X-Files episode all use this trick to fit in a Wilhelm.  In Juno though the clip with the Wilhelm is actually named - The Wizard of Gore, which Netflix happens to have and is in my queue.  The scream occurs in Chapter 13 of Juno.

Awhile ago I was out partying with a friend and noticed he had Batman Returns at his place. I borrowed it and finally got around to finding the Wilhelm clip. I initially tried to find it based of chapter titles but had no luck and while watching clips thought “I really want to watch this movie.” So Sarah and I started watching it a couple of nights ago and then stopped because it got late. We came back to it last night and did not finish nor will we.

I am a bit of a Batman fan and I thought I liked Batman and Batman Returns but after having watched part of Batman Returns I don’t think I really like either of them. One might think that Batman Begins spoiled it for me but I wasn’t entirely happy with that movie either. I’ve realized that Kevin Conroy is my Batman. He is the voice actor for Batman in Batman The Animated Series and Justice League both by Bruce Timm. Batman Returns and the Animated Series were both released in 1992, however the movie was in June and the series started in September. I believe that explains why I had thought Batman Returns was good - it was before my favorite Batman.

We did make it to Chapter 17 of Batman Returns which includes one Wilhelm.

That 8x fast forward came in handy yet again as neither my wife nor I could put up with Planet of the Apes after half an hour and we ended up fast forwarding to the Wilhelms. Unfortunately, the Wilhelm Site doesn’t tell you when the scream occurs so I had to fast forward through the whole movie as they occur in the end chapters.

This raises another gripe of mine. I wrote the Hollywood Lost and Found admins with information about the chapter locations of some screams I have found and have not heard back at all. It is as if my e-mail disappeared in the ether. Not even a “Hey read the FAQ”, which I did later, “and you will find out we think it is more fun to hunt them down.” It might be fun for them but I’m not very patient and really didn’t want to put up with Planet of the Apes. So I am posting where the screams occur in movies for all the other impatient people.

So with that out of the way, one scream occurs in Chapter 29 and possibly 2 occur in Chapter 31. I need to listen one of the ones in Chapter 31 some more as I am not positive about it becuase it may be one of the lesser known screams.

This weekend I discovered that my DVD player can fast forward at 8x.

I went to the library today and naturally decided to look for some Wilhelm movies. The only one that I saw on the shelf and remembered having a scream in it was A Star is Born with Judy Garland. Now, I had no intention of actually watching the movie but had to find the 2 Willhelms in it. One is listed as being during “the rehearsal record of ‘Somewhere There’s a Someone’” was fairly easy to find by studying the DVD insert with chapter titles. It was in Chapter 39 titled “Someone at Last”.
The second clip, which is actually the first from the movie, I found by using the 8x fast forward on my DVD player. As I was watching it at 8x the dog kept on wanting to play with me and I frequently looked away missing minutes of the movie. I still managed to catch the scream in Chapter 19 as it was fairly obvious when “Charge at Feather River” was being screened. It was actually kind of fun trying to make up a story line while watching it without sound and people moving fast. Give it a try sometime.

So Kees had brought it to my attention awhile ago that I may have missed one scream from Return of the Jedi. It appears in Special Edition version of the movie where the celebration scence is extended and includes the planets of Naboo, Tatooine and Coruscant. A Stormtrooper supposedly takes a dive in Chapter 49 of the DVD I have, I didn’t see it but I did hear the Wilhelm right before the fireworks start.

I have been looking at Spider-Man for a while now but haven’t found the scream. I have a good lead and will listen for it tonight.

I am constantly reminded how much reading helps. While processing clip #16 from the Matriculated short of The Animatrix, I was frustrated at where avisplit was putting the end boundary. I was specifying a specific end frame and avisplit was disregarding it, and I continuously tried to move the end frame with no change. Reading the man for avisplit again I discovered the ‘-m’ option. This forces the split at the upper boundary (end frame number) instead of the lower boundary. This makes more sense to me as I would rather have padding before the scream to setup the context than after the scream.

Scream location: 13:55 seconds in Matriculated of The Animatrix

Leann leant me her copy of Anchorman and conveniently marked the DVD with information regarding the location of the Wilhelm scream. It occurs in Chapter 15 at minute mark 1:04:35 of the “Unrated, Uncut & Uncalled For!” version. I have already dumped the clip and will add it to the work in progress video. I’m kind of sad I didn’t watch the movie first and then do the clip. But I’m not a patient individual.

A coworker of mine lent me the Indiana Jones box set of DVDs and that was a gold mine of Wilhelm screams. Raiders of the Lost Ark contained two, one in Chapter 23 and one in Chapter 24. The Temple of Doom had three, one in Chapter 3, one in Chapter 4 and a final one in Chapter 29. Three actually seemed like over kill for one movie. I was also surprised to discover that the name of the club in the beginning of Temple of Doom is called “Club Obi Wan”. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade only had one and that was located in Chapter 28. I was hoping to be able to get Julian Glover, who plays Walter Donovan, in the Last Crusade clip as he appears in the clip from The Empire Strikes Back as the AT-AT commander. However, I think it would have made the Last Crusade clip way too long.

I showed the 14 clips to my wife again and she still thinks I am crazy.