SW076 1950s’ Hollywood Films Carve Fanciful Views of Everglades Struggle to Remove Seminole; Introduce ‘Wilhelm Scream‘ to moviergoers

<p></p> <p>Listeners to this Seminole Wars podcast understand the rich scenic cinematic possibilities in telling the story of this long Florida-based conflict. The film makers in Hollywood did, too, back in the 1950s anyway.</p> <p>Distant Drums, Seminole, and Naked in the Sun are three films taking some aspect of the war and presenting a fanciful view with great liberties to tell a compelling narrative. Distant Drums is the first film to use the so-called 'Wilhelm Scream.' We've all heard it: <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio'>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio</a> (identified with the 3rd film to use the sound effect).</p>   <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wilhelm_scream_WikiWorld.png'></a>   Illustration of Wilhelm scream. <p> </p> <p>The Wilhelm scream is a <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_sound_effect'>stock sound effect</a> that has been used in a number of films and TV series, beginning in 1951 with the film <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Drums'>Distant Drums</a>. The scream is usually used when someone is shot, falls from a great height or is thrown from an explosion. The sound is named after Private Wilhelm, a character in <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charge_at_Feather_River'>The Charge at Feather River</a>, a 1953 <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_(genre)'>Western</a> in which the character gets shot in the thigh with an arrow. </p>   The Wilhelm scream originates from a series of sound effects recorded for the 1951 movie Distant Drums. In a scene from the film, soldiers are wading through a swamp in the <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades'>Everglades</a>, and one of them is bitten and dragged underwater by an <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator'>alligator</a>. The screams for that scene, and other scenes in the movie, were recorded later in a single take. The recording was entitled: "Man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed." The fifth take of the scr