Something bad happens (e.g. house burns down). Character in the movie puts his hands to his cheeks…shouts “Noooooooo…” - it’s often slowed-down and distorted. For some reason, it’s also very often associated with birds taking flight from trees - the camera pans to show these. A variation is where the character leaps into a slow-mo headlong dash in an attempt to stop whatever is about to happen / catch a falling object / whatever.
It’s become such a recognizable cliche that nowadays it’s even used for comedic effect.
It’s a silent film, so the “Noooooo” would have had to show up on a title card (“Nyyyyyyetttt”, maybe?) if at all, but could be that this was the genesis of the idea. At any rate it would be hard to go much further back than 1925.
In Battleship Potemkin there are several closeups of a woman reacting in shock as her child is trampled in a massacre on the Odessa steps, but there are no slow motion shots, and obviously no sound effects, the two hallmarks of the movie cliché that the OP describes.
Willie in “House of Dark Shadows” leaping to stop Barnabas from being shot with a crossbow bolt c. 1970. That’s my first clear recollection of it, and in context it was very effective, slo mo and all.
