Remake

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.”

I found it, Gene Kelly with Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor, tapping up steps and over furniture in wild exuberance. Okay.

I scanned the menu for movies that didn’t have Gene Kelly or Judy Garland in them. “Good News?”

“ ‘The Varsity Drag,’ ” she said, nodding. “It’s right at the end. Do you have Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?”

“Sure. Which number?”

“The barnraising,” she said. “Frame 27-986.”

I called it up. I looked for something with Ruby Keeler in it. “42nd Street?”

She shook her head. “It’s a Busby Berkeley. There’s no dancing in it except for one background shot of a rehearsal and about sixteen bars in the ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ number. There’s never any dancing in Busby Berkeleys. Do you have On the Town?”

“I thought you didn’t like Gene Kelly.”

“Ann Miller,” she said. “The ‘Prehistoric Man’ number. Frame 28-650. She’s technically pretty good when she sticks to tap.”

I don’t know why I was so surprised or what I’d expected. Starstruck adoration, I guess. Ruby Keeler gushing, “Gosh, Mr. Ziegfeld, a part in your show! That’d be wonderful!” Or maybe Judy Garland, gazing longingly at the photo of Clark Gable in Broadway Melody of 1938. But she didn’t like Judy, and she’d dismissed Gene Kelly as airily as if he was an auditioning chorus girl in a Busby Berkeley. Who she didn’t like either.

I filled out the array with Fred Astaire, who she did like, though none of his color movies were as good as the b-and-w’s, and neither were his partners. Most of them just hung on while he swung them around, or struck a pose and let him dance circles, literally, around them.

Alis wasn’t watching them. She’d gone back to the center screen and was watching Fred, full-length, swirling Ginger weightlessly across the floor.

“So that’s what you want to do,” I said, pointing. “Dance the Continental?”

She shook her head. “I’m not good enough yet. I only know a few routines. I could do that,” she said, pointing at the Varsity Drag, and then at the cowboy number from Girl Crazy. “And maybe that. Chorus, not lead.”

And that wasn’t what I expected either. The one thing the faces have in common under their Marilyn beauty marks is the unshakeable belief they’ve got what it takes to be a star. Most of them don’t — they can’t act or show emotion, can’t even do a reasonable imitation of Norma Jean’s breathy voice and sexy vulnerability — but they all think the only thing standing between them and stardom is bad luck, not talent. I’d never heard any of them say, “I’m not good enough.”

“I’m going to need to find a dancing teacher,” Alis was saying. “You don’t know of one, do you?”

In Hollywood? She was as likely to find one as she was to run into Fred Astaire. Less likely.

And what if she was smart enough to know how good she was? What if she’d studied the movies and criticized them? None of it was going to bring back musicals. None of it was going to make ILMGM start shooting liveactions again.