“It’s not on the disk,” I’d said, “it’s in litigation,” and it had stayed in litigation till the next day. And when I checked, it had been in litigation the whole time I looked for her.
And for eight months before that, in a National Treasure suit the Film Preservation Society had brought. The night I saw Brides, it had been out of litigation exactly two hours. And had gone back in an hour later.
Alis had only been working at A Star Is Born for six months. Brides had been in litigation the whole time. Until after I found her. Until after I told her I’d seen her in it. And when I told her, she’d said, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Are you sure?” and I’d thought she was surprised because the jumps and lifts were so hard, surprised because she hadn’t been trying to superimpose her image on the screen.
Brides hadn’t come out of litigation till the next day.
And a week and a half later Alis came to me. She came straight from the skids, straight from practicing with the harness and the armature that she’d thought might work, “after what you said the other night.” And it had worked. ” — I guess,” she’d said. “I mean—”
She’d come straight from practice, wearing Virginia Gibson’s pink gingham dress, Virginia Gibson’s pantaloons, wearing her costume for the barnraising dance she’d just done. The barnraising dance I’d seen her in six weeks before she ever did it. And my theory about her having somehow gone back in time was right after all, even if it was only her image, only pixels on a screen. She hadn’t been trying to discover time travel either. She had only been trying to learn routines, but the screen she’d been rehearsing in front of wasn’t a screen. It was a negative-matter region, full of randomized electrons and potential overlaps. Full of possibilities.
Nothing’s impossible, Vincent, I think, watching Alis do kick-turns in her sequined leotard. Not if you know what you want.
Heada is accessing me. “I was wrong. The Ford Tri-Motor’s at the beginning of the second one. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Beginning with frame—”
“I found it,” I say, frowning at the screen where Alis, in her platinum wig, is doing a brush step.
“What’s wrong?” Heada says. “Isn’t it going to work?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “When’s the Fred Astaire suit going to be settled?”
“A month,” she says promptly. “But it’s going right back in. Sofracima-Rizzoli’s claiming copyright infringement.”
“Who the hell is Sofracima-Rizzoli?”
“The studio that owns the rights to a movie Fred Astaire made in the seventies. The Purple Taxi. I figure they’ll settle. Three months. Why?” she says suspiciously.
“The plane in Flying Down to Rio. I’ve decided that’s what I want.”
“A biplane? You don’t have to wait for that. There are tons of other movies with biplanes in them. The Blue Max, Wings, High Road to China—” She stops, looking unhappy.
“Do they have skids in China?” I say.
“Are you kidding? They’re lucky to have bicycles. And enough to eat. Why?” she says, suddenly interested. “Have you found out where Alis is?”
“No.”
Heada hesitates, trying to decide whether to tell me something. “The assistant set director’s back from China. He says the word is, it’s Cultural Revolution 3. Book burnings, reeducation, they’ve shut at least one studio down and arrested the whole film crew.”
I should be worried, but I’m not, and Heada, who knows everything, pounces immediately.
“Is she back?” she says. “Have you had word from her?”
“No,” I say, because I have finally learned how to lie to Heada, and because it’s true. I don’t know where she is, and I haven’t had word from her. But I’ve gotten a message.
Fred Astaire has been out of litigation twice since Alis left, once between copyright suits for exactly eight seconds, the other time last month when the AFI filed an injunction claiming he was a historic landmark.
That time I was ready. I had the Beguine number on opdisk, backup, and tape, and was ready to check it before the watch-and-warn had even stopped beeping.
It was the middle of the night, as usual, and at first I thought I was still asleep or having one last flash.
“Enhance upper left,” I said, and watched it again. And again. And the next morning.
It looked the same every time, and the message was loud and clear: Alis is all right, in spite of uprisings and revolutions, and she’s found a place to practice and somebody to teach her Eleanor Powell’s heel-and-toe steps. And she’s going to come back, because China doesn’t have skids, and when she does, she’s going to dance the Beguine with Fred Astaire.
Or maybe she already has. I saw her in the barnraising number in Brides six weeks before she did it, and it’s been four since I saw her in Melody. Maybe she’s already back. Maybe she’s already done it.
I don’t think so. I’ve promised the current A Star Is Born James Dean a lifetime supply of chooch to tell me if anybody touches the Digimatte, and Fred’s still in litigation. And I don’t know how far back in time the overlap goes. Six weeks before she did it was only when I saw her in Brides. There’s no telling how long before that her image was there. Under two years, because it wasn’t in 42nd Street when I watched it the first time, when I was first starting Mayer’s list, and yeah, I know I was splatted and might have missed her. But I didn’t. I would know her face anywhere.
So under two years. And Heada, who knows everything, says Fred will be out of litigation in three months.
In the meantime, I keep busy, doing remakes and trying to make them good, getting Mayer to talk ILMGM into copyrighting Ruby Keeler and Eleanor Powell, working for the Resistance. I have even come up with a happy ending for Casablanca.
It is after the war, and Rick has come back to Casablanca after fighting with the Resistance, after who knows what hardships. The Café Américain has burned down, and everybody’s gone, even the parrot, even Sam, and Bogie stands and looks at the rubble for a long time, and then starts picking through the mess, trying to see what he can salvage.
He finds the piano, but when he tips it upright, half the keys fall out. He fishes an unbroken bottle of scotch out of the rubble and sets it on the piano and starts looking around for a glass. And there she is, standing in what’s left of the doorway.
She looks different, her hair’s pulled back, and she looks thinner, tired. You can see by looking at her that Paul Henreid’s dead and she’s gone through a lot, but you’d know that face anywhere.
She stands there in the door, and Bogie, still trying to find a glass, looks up and sees her.
No dialogue. No music. No clinch, in spite of Heada’s benighted ideas. Just the two of them, who never thought they’d see each other again, standing there looking at each other.
When I’m done with my remake, I’ll put my Casablanca ending in Happily Ever After’s comp for the tourates.
In the meantime, I have to separate my star-crossed lovers and send them off to suffer assorted hardships and pay for their sins. For which I need a plane.
I put the “Anything Goes” number on disk and backup, in case Kate Capshaw goes into litigation, and then ff to the Ford Tri-Motor and save that, too, in case the biplane doesn’t work.