She took hold of my arm. “I don’t think you should—” she said, still looking at Alis. “She won’t…” She was looking worriedly at me. Mildred Natwick in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, telling John Wayne to be careful.
“Won’t what? Give me a pop? You wanta bet?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head like she was trying to clear it. “You… she knows what she wants.”
“So do I. And thanks to your Russian-roulette approach to pharmaceuticals, it promises to be an unforgettable experience. If I can get Ruby up to my room in the next ten minutes. Now, if there are no further objections…” I said, and started past her.
She started to put out her hand, like she was going to grab my sleeve, and then let it drop.
The exec was talking about negative-matter regions. I went around him and over to the screen, where Alis was looking up at Fred’s face, the staircase, Ginger’s black-edged skirt, Fred’s hand.
She was as pretty in close-up as she had been in the establishing shot. Her caught-back hair was picking up the flickering light from the screen and her face had an intent, focused look.
“They shouldn’t do that,” she said.
“What? Show a movie?” I said. “ ‘You’ve got to show a movie at a party. It’s a Hollywood law.’ ”
She turned and smiled delightedly at me. “I know that line. It’s from Singin’ in the Rain,” she said, pleased. “I didn’t mean the movie. It’s them editing it like that.” She looked back up at the screen. Or down. It was doing an aerial now, and all you could see were the tops of Fred and Ginger’s heads.
“I take it you don’t like Vincent’s edit program?” I said.
“Vincent?”
I nodded toward the baseball cap, who was off in a corner doing a line of illy. “Doesn’t he remind you of Vincent Price in House of Wax?”
The edit program was back to quick cuts — the steps, Fred’s face, close-up of a step. The baby carriage scene from Potemkin.
“In more ways than one,” I said.
“Fred Astaire always insisted they shoot his dances in full-length shot and a continuous take,” she said without taking her eyes off the screen. “He said it’s the only way to film dancing.”
“He did, huh? No wonder I like the original better.” I looked at her. “I’ve got it up in my room.”
And that made her turn away from Ginger’s flashingly cut feet, shoulder, hair, and look at me. It was the same intent, focused look she had had watching the screen, and I felt the edges start to blur.
“No cuts, no camera angles,” I said rapidly. “Nothing pre-programmed. Full-length and continuous take. Want to come up and take a look?”
She looked back at the freescreen. Fred’s chest, his face, his knees. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve got the real movie? Not colorized or anything?”
“The real thing,” I said, and led her up the stairs.
RUBY KEELER: [Nervously] I’ve never been in a man’s apartment before.
ADOLPHE MENJOU: [Pouring champagne] You’ve never been in Hollywood before. [Handing her glass] Here, my dear, this will relax you.
RUBY KEELER: [Hovering near door] You said you had a screen test application up here. Shouldn’t I fill it out?
ADOLPHE MENJOU: [Turning down lights] Later, my dear, after we’ve had a chance to get to know each other.
“I’ve got anything you could want,” I told Alis on the way up. “All the ILMGMs and the Warner and Fox-Mitsubishi libraries, at least everything that’s been digitized, which should be everything you’d want.” I led her down the hall. “The Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies were Warner, weren’t they?”
“RKO,” she said.
“Same thing.” I keyed the door. “Here we are,” I said, and opened it onto my room.
She took a trusting step inside and then stopped at the sight of the arrays covering three walls with their mirrored screens. “I thought you said you were a student,” she said.
Now was not the time to tell her I hadn’t been to class in over a semester. “I am,” I said, leaning past her so she’d step forward into the room, and picking up a shirt. “Clothes all over the floor, bed’s not made.” I lobbed the shirt into the corner. “Andy Hardy Goes to College.”
She was looking at the digitizer and the fibe-op feed hookup. “I thought only the studios had Crays.”
“I do work for them to help pay for tuition,” I said. And keep me in chooch.
“What kind of work?” she said, looking up at her own face’s reflection in the silvered screens, and now was not the time to tell her I specialized in procuring popsy for studio execs either.
“Remakes,” I said. I smoothed out the blankets. “Sit down.”
She perched on the edge of the bed, knees together.
“Okay,” I said, sitting down at the comp. I asked for the Warner library menu. “The Continental’s in Top Hat, isn’t it?”
“The Gay Divorcee,” she said. “Near the end.”
“Main screen, end frame and back at 96,” I said. Fred and Ginge leaped onto the screen and up over a table. “Rew at 96 frames per sec,” and they jumped down off the table and back through breakfast to the ballroom.
I rew’d to the beginning of the number and let it go. “Do you want sound?” I said.
She shook her head, her face already intent on the screen, and maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea. She leaned forward, and the same concentrated look she’d had downstairs came into her face, as if she were trying to memorize the steps. I might as well not have been in the room, which hadn’t exactly been the idea in bringing her up here.
“Menu,” I said. “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies.” The menu came up. “Aux screen one, Swingtime,” I said. There was usually a big dance finale in these things, wasn’t there? “End frame and back at 96.”
There was. On the top left-hand screen, Fred in tails spun Ginge in a silver dress. “Frame 102-044,” I said, reading the code at the bottom. “Forward realtime to end and repeat. Continuous loop. Screen two, Follow the Fleet, screen three, Top Hat, screen four, Carefree. End frame and back at 96.”
I started continuous loops on them and went through the rest of the Fred and Ginger list, filling most of the left-hand array with their dancing: turning, tapping, twirling, Fred in tails, sailor’s uniform, riding tweeds, Ginger in long, slinky dresses that flared out below the knee in a froth of feathers and fur and glitter. Waltzing, tapping, gliding through the Carioca, the Yam, the Piccolino. And all of them full-length. All of them without cuts.
Alis was staring at the screens. The careful, intent look was gone, and she was smiling delightedly.
“Anything else?”
“Shall We Dance,” she said. “The title number. Frame 87-1309.”
I set it running on the bottom row. Fred in meticulous tails, dancing with a chorus of blondes in black satin and veils. They all held up masks of Ginger Rogers’s face, and they put them up in front of their faces and flirted away from Fred, their masks as stiff as faces.
“Any other movies?” I said, calling up the menu again. “Plenty of screens left. How about An American in Paris?”
“I don’t like Gene Kelly,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, surprised. “How about Meet Me in St. Louis?”
“There isn’t any dancing in it except the ‘Under the Banyan Tree’ number with Margaret O’Brien. It’s because of Judy Garland. She was a terrible dancer.”
“Okay,” I said, even more surprised. “Singin’ in the Rain? No, wait, you don’t like Gene Kelly.”
“The ‘Good Mornin’ ’ number’s okay.”