The Big Picture
- One Saliva Bubble would have been a bizarre, absurdist body-swapping comedy written by David Lynch and Mark Frost.
- The script is filled with Lynch’s trademark dream-like surrealism and chaotic comedy, unlike anything he has done before.
- The potential pairing of Steve Martin and Martin Short in the film would have unleashed their unhinged comedic talents.
The annals of unmade film projects from prolific directors is a bounty of couldabeens worth daydreaming over. Stanley Kubrick famously has a sizable chest of unrealized projects (his Napoleon could’ve been an all-timer), as does Quentin Tarantino, and Guillermo del Toro…and essentially every director that’s been working for more than a handful of years. One of the weirdest, most intriguing comes from David Lynch and — yes — Steve Martin and Martin Short. Titled One Saliva Bubble, the flick, written by Lynch and his Twin Peaks collaborator Mark Frost, would have been a bizarre body-swapping comedy quite unlike anything Lynch has done before, yet it’s still full of his trademark dream-like surrealism.
Of course, it never got made. The project fell though, Lynch says, because Dino De Laurentiis‘ company went bankrupt. What would have come out of the production, though, is weird. Really weird. Even for Lynch standards, which is saying something. Though some of the ideas were ultimately recycled for Lynch and Frost’s excellent Twin Peaks: The Return, the abandoned project is rarely discussed or acknowledged, even if it would have been kind of amazing had it actually gotten made. The script has since been made available online, giving us the chance to speculate about what an absurdist David Lynch comedy with the Only Murders in the Building stars would have looked like.
What Is David Lynch’s ‘One Saliva Bubble’ About?
Set in the fictional town of Newtonville, Kansas, One Saliva Bubble follows an eccentric cast of characters that includes everyman Wally Newton, the dim-witted Newt Newton, the brilliant Swiss scientist Professor Hugo, and sadistic killer Thorton Thursby. At a top-secret experimental military base outside of Philadelphia, a bunch of guards stand around talkin’ nonsense (“…so she said to him ‘poo-poo on your pee-pee,'” one of the guards says). Another guard cackles and produces the titular saliva bubble from his laughter, which goes airborne and short-circuits the computer equipment the scientists are working on. Now, a secret government satellite attached to the computers malfunctions and sends out a ray that mysteriously swaps the bodies of the entire town, including the four main characters. It’s all like Freaky Friday via Thomas Pynchon, a jubilant, freewheelin’ comedy that goes off the rails within the first ten pages and never loses steam.
Newt-as-Hugo gets entangled in a competition between Company “A” and Company “B” to create a successful formula. The executives and brainiacs at Company “A” watch his childish behavior and try to find the genius in it. Meanwhile, Horton-as-Wally quickly solves Wally’s family conflicts with his newfound assertiveness. He lays the smackdown on some rude, condescending house guests and has passionate sex with Wally’s wife, restoring the couple’s passion. Wally-as-Horton brings his good-natured family man ethics to the organized crime business, much to his associates’ confusion. This, and about a dozen other bodyswapped antics, is the basis for the film…that and a third act inclusion of a military investigation. Oh yeah, and there’s also a B-plot with the “professor” inventing a formula for Heinz 58 (replacing the brand’s iconic Heinz 57).
It all makes for one of the most chaotic comedy scripts out there. Even if it’s completely unlike anything Lynch has ever actually made, its closest relative in the auteur’s filmography is the more comedic moments of Twin Peaks (unsurprising, considering that’s essentially the only time he’s collaborated in depth with Frost). There’s also some of his laidback The Straight Story in there, which is Lynch’s most accessible and wholesome work, as well as his crude and comedic Dumbland shorts. While the specific casting choices were never revealed, my money is for Martin as the slow and childish “professor” (recalling his excellent work in The Jerk) and Short for the “everyman” Wally. We’ll never see what the duo could have done with a Lynch script, but it assuredly would have been some delightfully weird shit.
David Lynch Has a Lengthy List of Abandoned Projects
Beyond One Saliva Bubble and the well-known anecdote about Lynch being approached to direct Return of the Jedi, the surreal filmmaker has had plenty of projects that never came into fruition. Ronnie Rocket, one of his most promising unpublished scripts, revolves around a teenage dwarf who, after a surgical mishap, is able to conduct electricity. He joins a rock band, exists between two different alternate worlds, and flirts with a tap-dancer named Electra-Cute. It’s through Ronnie Rocket auditions that Lynch met his frequent collaborator Michael J. Anderson, who would later appear in a crucial role in Twin Peaks. Set in a smokestack-filled industrial landscape ala Eraserhead, the film would have been vintage Lynch, with many of same themes that make up his greatest work.
There’s also his proposed adaptation of Franz Kafka‘s The Metamorphosis, abandoned after Lynch wrote the script because he realized “Kafka’s beauty is in his words.” There’s also the Audrey Horne Twin Peaks spinoff (which become Mulholland Drive, one of his greatest accomplishments), and a movie about three men who used to be cows. In his memoir Room to Dream, he discusses meeting with Marlon Brando to star in the film alongside Harry Dean Stanton. He recalls that Brando called the film “pretentious bullshit” and declined to star in it.
And let’s not forget the rumored Netflix project — often referred to as Wisteria — that has yet to be confirmed. Needless to say, Lynch might have something cooking, something that he alluded to in an interview during lockdown, stating that he’d like to work on a “film or a continuing story.” All things considered, One Saliva Bubble is just one of many unseen David Lynch films, albeit a particularly interesting one.
‘One Saliva Bubble’ Could Have Been an Essential Lynch Film
There’s plenty about One Saliva Bubble that would have made a memorable film, first and foremost being its pair of wouldabeen stars. Martin Short and Steve Martin make a good team. They just do. Not only are they both well-seasoned veterans in the comedy game, but they play off each other in a way that only genuine pals can. It’s not hard to see that they like working together, especially when they’re giving each other a good roast, which makes watching their collaborations all the more enjoyable to watch. Rarely, though, has the pair had the opportunity to be as absolutely unhinged as this Lynch project would have likely pushed them to be.
Short was phenomenal in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice, an undoubtedly out there movie. As Dr. Blatnoyd, a coked-up sex-obsessed dentist, Short exuded a hysterical mania that professed once again his knack for eccentric comedy. The script for One Saliva Bubble is rife with opportunities for the duo to further showcase their comedic prowess. An exercise in absurdity, One Saliva Bubble would have given him and Martin an opportunity to go absolutely wild, comically-speaking.
In terms of its place in Lynch’s oeuvre, One Saliva Bubble had the potential to be something the director hasn’t really made since: a full comedy. Plenty of its elements, specifically its plot device of a nearly brain-dead character taking the place of another with practically nobody noticing a goddamn thing, ended up finding its way in Twin Peaks: the Return to some fantastic results. It’s the kind of shit that nobody but Lynch could storm up, which is very much intended as a compliment. The script is filled with indelible little moments that are genuinely difficult to envision. It’s weird as all hell and proud of it, and Short/Martin could have brought their natural show-stopping charisma (and untouchable comic chemistry) to an otherwise esoteric screenplay.
By its end, One Saliva Bubble never quite reaches the unfathomable heights of Mulholland Dr, Blue Velvet, or even Eraserhead, but it contains within it a jubilant spirit that finds gut-busting comedy in absurd situations. The bits of comedy found in the director’s filmography is turned up to 11 here, to deafening volumes. With the script, he and Frost are clearly having a blast, and, had it gotten made, it’s likely that Short and Martin would have, too.
Shortly after the film fell through, Short performed a bizarre parody of Lynch in his film Jiminy Glick in Lalawood. About the movie and its parody of the great surreal filmmaker, Short stated in an interview that Lynch is “a very cool, hip guy…so I would imagine he’d only find it funny.” Judging by the script for One Saliva Bubble he might just be right. Too bad we’ll never see it.
