The Charge at Feather River (1953)

Directed by

Gordon Douglas

Genre

Western film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

NR

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An army officer leads a group of prisoners to rescue two women captured by Native Americans. The rescue mission builds to a big battle with many weapons thrown at the audience.

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What happens

The Charge at Feather River is a 1953 American Western film directed by Gordon Douglas. It was originally released in 3D with many arrows, lances, and other weapons flying directly at the audience in several scenes. The movie is most notable for originating the name of the "Wilhelm scream", a sound effect used in the Star Wars film series, as well as countless other movies including the Indiana Jones franchise, Disney cartoons and The Lord of the Rings film series. Sound designer Ben Burtt named the sound after "Pvt. Wilhelm", a minor character in the film who emits the famous scream after being shot by an arrow (although the recording actually originated in the Gary Cooper film Distant Drums in 1951). When the film screened at the Second World 3-D Expo at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre in 2006, much of the film-savvy audience broke into applause when Pvt. Wilhelm screamed. The climax of the film has many similarities to the 1868 Battle of Beecher Island, though instead of Army frontier scouts, Madison's character recruits "the Guardhouse Brigade" from Army prisoners and arms them with repeating rifles. Some have also noticed that the plot bears a number of similarities to the later Major Dundee, directed by Sam Peckinpah in 1965, notably the journey leading up to the climactic stand-off. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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