Watch enough classic movies — especially classic movies from slightly downmarket studios — and you’ll swear you’ve been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again. That’s because you have been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again: once recorded or acquired for one film, they could, of course, be re-used in another, and another, and another. No such frequently employed recording has a more illustrious and well-documented history than the so-called “Wilhelm scream,” which...