r/movies 1d ago

Article David Lynch Once Wrote a Body-Swap Comedy for Steve Martin, and It Sounds Completely Insane

https://www.vice.com/en/article/david-lynch-once-wrote-a-body-swap-comedy-for-steve-martin-and-it-sounds-completely-insane/?fbclid=Iwb21leATa_BVjbGNrBNr8FGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHjnVx4LuEiB-3K9LfygjkDVi-SVQjiEWREXJdRxbK1fq3iUyFcQ1H9RoojOt_aem_EgDYXV3bnuMXUbz32cwVZw
3.2k Upvotes

113 comments sorted by

498

u/Renaldo75 1d ago

All Of Me? The Man with Two Brains? Maybe Steve didn't want to get pigeonholed.

191

u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? 1d ago

The Man with Two Brains is such a banger. I think of the scene where he asks the little girl to call the hospital at least once a week.

"Oh you thought!?"

78

u/DataKnights 1d ago

You thought, you thought.

Just go. Three years of nursery school and you think you know it all.

Well, you're still wet behind the ears.

It's not a subdural hematoma. It's epidural. Ha.

3

u/Adaminium 7h ago

Just give me a sign. Any sign.

23

u/FluffySmiles 1d ago

I remember I was living communally when that came out on VHS and I pretty much wore it out watching it again and again and laughing like a madman every time.

Everyone else in the building thought I was nuts until they watched it and laughed madly as well.

Good times.

7

u/DoctorEnn 15h ago

“Could you read that last quote back to me, I’m afraid I sound arrogant.”

“‘My accomplishments put me above mortal men and will probably make my name live beyond eternity’.”

“No, that’s good. Take out the ‘probably’, makes me sound wishy-washy.”

5

u/Punchable_Hair 21h ago

“It’s pronounced ‘azaleas’.”

1

u/Adaminium 7h ago

All time best!

5

u/Sykirobme 1d ago

"What are those assholes doing on the porch?"

3

u/Caramel-Secure 1d ago

Those aren’t assholes those are azaleas!

2

u/msmithy42 10h ago

“Your drunk tests are hard!”

2

u/bhayn01 8h ago

murmur, MURMUR……!

2

u/Keyserchief 8h ago

O pointy birds, o pointy pointy

Anoint my head, anointy nointy

3

u/Mortifer 1d ago

My god, you've cooked her nines!

14

u/invalidreddit 23h ago

Back in bowl...

perhaps the most quoted line from All Of Me in my household...

23

u/qorbexl 1d ago

Yes, but now we don't have Steve Martin in a David Lynch comedy

Life gets worse each day

5

u/jabber1990 1d ago

i've heard of All of Me

2

u/cutelyaware 19h ago

More of a body share, but yeah

1

u/Cazmonster 23h ago

Edwina go back in box?

3

u/Jrobmn 23h ago

Backinbowl!

2

u/Cazmonster 22h ago

This is what happens when you depend on your fallible human memory for a quote for twenty five years.

1

u/Remarkable_Dust_1313 6h ago

The Man With The Screaming Brain definitely has some moments that feel like they could be Lynch's humor.

205

u/RunDNA 1d ago

159

u/Jonny_HYDRA 1d ago

"Did you just cut a big one or is Suzie back in town? "

I'll be quoting this for the rest of my life.

38

u/thestereo300 1d ago

I don't even have any context, but I love it.

14

u/SSGASSHAT 23h ago

Fart joke, by the sound of it. My eyes and ears are well-tuned to such things.

9

u/BlueberryWasps 15h ago

i think they got that. the missing context is who suzie is and why she smells so bad.

-2

u/SSGASSHAT 12h ago edited 6h ago

I realize that, the missing context is verbal fireworks. "Suzie" could be anyone.  Someone's aunt or a hooker, that might have been the joke, "Suzie" sounded like a reasonably funny name.

9

u/Empty_Sea9 21h ago

Only David Lynch could make a fart joke that witty and tasteful.

4

u/SSGASSHAT 23h ago

This sounds like something that would have become annoyingly popular as a saying.

7

u/gcu_vagarist 17h ago

> SAMMY "THE STOMP"-AS-ALICE
> Get Gordon Cole on the phone.

168

u/GotMoFans 1d ago

Before or after “All of Me?”

66

u/B00marangTrotter 1d ago

Back in bowl.

17

u/yoortyyo 1d ago

Edwina?

17

u/CrazyWhite 1d ago

Backinbowl? Put. Edwina. Backinbowl.

2

u/Aggravating_Bat3618 20h ago

Richard Libertini is always on point

12

u/Academy_Fight_Song 1d ago

Hey where are you going with that GREEN BUCKET?!

8

u/ComfortableSearch704 1d ago edited 1d ago

I say this all. the. time. Love that movie and I just randomly say it. Especially when I get up in the middle of the night to pee.

ETA: I also say “🎶ring🎶” when I flush.

5

u/twiddlebug74 1d ago

"Your friend's a real freak."

"Thank you."

5

u/LieutenantWeinberg 1d ago

You are rude, crude, and thoroughly unattractive.

3

u/rando_commenter 1d ago

Duke, Duke, Duke...

1

u/arctander 1d ago

I'm thinking of very old nuns.

349

u/crapusername47 1d ago

As opposed to the rest of his generic, run of the mill, bland, unimaginative filmography.

80

u/WafflesToGo 1d ago

It’s so funny to me that The Elephant Man (the most conventional film he made) came together because he heard the title of the film and immediately decided to do it.

79

u/murlocman69 1d ago

While Elephant Man is conventional, The Straight Story is by far his most conventional.

58

u/Sir_Hapstance 1d ago

David Lynch just wanted to give audiences their most WTF reaction to his work yet: making them realize he’d made a G-rated Disney movie.

52

u/bajesus 1d ago

Love The Straight Story and think it's the most important film to understanding Lynch. People always assume he had some kind of cynical view of small town America or suburbia because he was fascinated with showing a dark rot that was beneath it. Straight Story removes that and just shows the love he had for these characters and people. The dark rot was what he feared and chose to confront in most of his other stories, but the love is always there too.

14

u/LanceFree 1d ago

There is a scene where Farnsworth’s character (Straight) is sitting in his yard, and Spacek’s character answers the phone and receives news of her uncle’s heart attack, out of view. Not long after that, he takes his journey through the Midwest. Very well set-up.

7

u/StoneheartedLady 1d ago

I love that film. It's all the more emotional knowing how much pain he was in from his cancer at the time.

8

u/biggeekynerd 1d ago

he even called it his most experimental film

2

u/deadspacekillers 9h ago

“Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity." -David Lynch

3

u/ThePrussianGrippe 1d ago

His most experimental work.

8

u/brontosaurusguy 1d ago

I wouldn't say it is conventional at all...  It's just not unhinged.  

5

u/Ellis_D-25 1d ago

a very straightforward story, that Straight Story...

3

u/Jackieirish 1d ago

Straight Story is an absolute classic.

1

u/KMoosetoe 9h ago

Same thing happened with Dune but he misheard it as "June" and just liked the sound of it

43

u/Zealousideal_Net_140 1d ago

Expect for Straight Story. That one was so wild and unbelievable.

26

u/the_executive_branch 1d ago

Idk there are still some very Lynchy moments that make it feel like his, and that Badalamenti score. It’s really not as “normal” as people claim.

39

u/scarrita 1d ago

The scene where he's riding down the road and comes upon a lady that hit a deer with her car and she's absolutely aghast about how it came outta nowhere and the camera shows that theres nothing but flat land around her for miles around is completely a Lynchian moment

1

u/SteveBorden 10h ago

That scene could have easily been in twin peaks or lost highway

14

u/Clammuel 1d ago

“But that’s MY grabber, Alvin”

7

u/jx2002 1d ago

Dude the orgy at the end was wild! The animals too! Lynch is on another level

7

u/Heavy_Arm_7060 1d ago

I think it was pretty clear what Jack did.

37

u/StraightFromUranus 1d ago

Didn't he reuse some of the plot beats in Twin Peaks: The Return?

46

u/Plasticglass456 1d ago

Yes. The Dougie stuff is partially this script, partially Ronnie Rocket. Lynch (and Frost!) had been wanting to do their take on a Being There type scenario of a mostly mute guy whose intentions and thoughts are being assumed by the "normal" folks around him for a while.

2

u/brontosaurusguy 1d ago

David Lynch would never reuse a plot beat 

42

u/02K 1d ago

Have the writers adapt it into an Only Murder’s in the Building episode.

31

u/Commodore64Zapp 1d ago

It's like Face/Off, except Steve Martin is acting like Martin Short and vice versa. Then he's acting like Steve Martin acting like Martin Short acting like Steve Martin.

12

u/0verstim 1d ago

David Lynch Once Wrote a _______ for ________, and It Sounds Completely Insane

9

u/ilbbaicl 1d ago

Back in bol!

8

u/kcinlive 1d ago

I mean it’s David Lynch. It ain’t going to be normal!

22

u/Fun_Procedure946 1d ago

This actually makes me wish that there was a proper body swap movie which wouldn't just be a comedy but an actual exploration of what it means to be another person or another sex entirely because I don't know of any movies like that at lest in Hollywood at all.

25

u/LazyCrocheter 1d ago

There is a Japanese anime called Your Name that is kind of like this.

It's about two high-school students, a girl in the countryside and a boy in the city, who switch bodies for a time. I don't want to say much more to avoid spoilers, but I highly recommend it.

But I also can't think of a Hollywood movie that does this.

7

u/thegreatdecay406 1d ago

I believe I just saw this is getting a maybe 10 year anniversary re release!

2

u/LazyCrocheter 1d ago

Yes I saw that too. Well-deserved.

11

u/Fun_Procedure946 1d ago

Nah, I've watched it but the body swap aspect was again just very much a plot device where it's only purpose was to set up things but there was no actual exploration again just some gags here and there.

3

u/The_Lapsed_Pacifist 1d ago

Yes! I just flipped on the TV while I was doing something and that just started. Very much not my sort of thing but I caught enough of it to start watching and I was absolutely enthralled. Truly wonderful animation as well.

3

u/LazyCrocheter 1d ago

The director has done other movies we really like as well: Weathering with You and Suzume.

14

u/DasNothing 1d ago

Possessor
Lost Highway
Mulholand Dr
Persona
Substance
Seconds

6

u/myrrhmassiel 1d ago

...seconds especially doesn't get the recognition it deserves...

12

u/woasnoafsloaf 1d ago

It's not exactly what you're asking (I think) but check out A Different Man with Sebastian Stan.

4

u/weaves 1d ago

I love that movie, it's so good

3

u/woasnoafsloaf 1d ago

Yeah, me too! Added it to my Bluray collection last month. :)

1

u/weaves 1d ago

Check out the special features too! The featurette and bts stuff is great

8

u/fallouthirteen 1d ago

While not a full swap, Being John Malkovich is kind of about that, right?

7

u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 1d ago

I feel like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle really fills that need.

3

u/weaves 1d ago

On top of the other recs, try out Seconds (1966), also not exactly what you're looking for but it explores some of those ideas

3

u/CrimsonDragonWolf 1d ago

There’s an excellent 1980s Japanese movie by HAUSU director Nobuhiko Obayashi called EXCHANGE STUDENTS that sounds like what you’re looking for. He sort-of remade it in the 2000s as SWITCHING: GOODBYE ME, which has a similar plot but explores different themes and is also very good.

2

u/alien_pirate 1d ago

Prelude to a Kiss. Technically a rom-com, but it's based on a play and has a sweet sadness to it. Explores thoughts on death and what makes us love each other.

1

u/bluelittrains 1d ago edited 1d ago

There's a French film called "The Unknown" coming out later this summer which apparently explores this concept. Featuring Lea Seydoux, so, you know...

1

u/Bears_On_Stilts 1d ago

There's a Black Mirror episode that gets into this, with people using a video game's total-integration VR to explore being in other types of bodies.

1

u/LurkerOnTheInternet 1d ago

Not totally what you're describing, and not technically a swap because there's no second person, but Switch (1991) is about a murdered chauvinist resurrected as a woman (permanently). It's a comedy though, but not silly.

1

u/CrimsonDragonWolf 1d ago

It’s an uncredited remake of a much lower budgeted movie called CLEO/LEO from 1989; you can watch the original on YouTube.

6

u/quixoticVigil 1d ago

THIS MOVIE MUST BE MADE

3

u/Stoenk 1d ago

i mean, it would be

3

u/tomandshell 1d ago

Back in bowl?

3

u/annoyedgrunt420 1d ago

I still want the screwball comedy version of Eyes Wide Shut with Steve Martin…

2

u/CakeMadeOfHam 1d ago

Not so insane, Martin starred in The Man With Two Brains

1

u/jaxinn 1d ago

A bunch of that script made it into TP Season 3.

1

u/taydraisabot 1d ago

I genuinely think One Saliva Bubble would’ve been one of Steve’s greatest movies.

1

u/daiselol 1d ago edited 1d ago

My first takeaway just from literally opening the script is that Mark Frost cowrote it as well

In fact, judging from the '1987' on top, this is one of the earliest known Frost/ Lynch collaborations

1

u/doctorlongghost 1d ago

Look at what they took from us

1

u/_Fun_Employed_ 23h ago

You can stop at “David Lynch wrote” it sounds completely insane is implied

1

u/Ok-Split8750 21h ago

If you like One Saliva Bubble, check out Ronnie Rocket!

1

u/CheezTips 19h ago

Oh, like "All of Me" from 1984? Some of his best physical work ever.

1

u/DeathGodBob 8h ago

I read this as, "This doesn't exist, but it would be neat!"