Ginger and Fred is a 1986 film from Italy directed by Federico Fellini.
Amelia Bonetti (Giulietta Masina) and Pippo Botticella (Marcello Mastroianni) were once dance partners who had an act in which they imitated Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In fact, their stage names were "Ginger and Fred", in that order. They broke up some thirty years ago and haven't seen each other since, but they each get a call from an Italian variety show to appear on a Christmas special. Each accepts, Amelia mostly because she'd like one more moment in the limelight, and Pippo because he needs the money.
So the old couple, each now well into their sixties, meets again. They are just one act in a truly demented holiday special that offers a bizarre list of attractions—faith healers, a Mafioso who's been given a day off from prison to sing, a whole troupe of dancing dwarfs, and many other celebrity impersonators. Will "Ginger" and "Fred", the old troupers, rise to the occasion one last time?
Although Giulietta Masina (Federico Fellini's wife) and Marcello Mastroianni each starred in several Fellini movies, this was the only time they appeared together.
Tropes:
- Celebrity Impersonator: This is what Amelia and Pippo did back in the day, even though, as one character observes, Amelia is way too petite to imitate tall, curvy Ginger Rogers. There's a host of other celebrity impersonators in the show: there's a Telly Savalas, a Ronald Reagan, a Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich in lesbian mode, and others.
- Christmas Special: A deeply weird one, as "Ginger" and "Fred" the dancers are the most normal act in a show that features stuff like a holy monk that claims he can levitate, and a man who supposedly can make women pregnant by a look, and a cow with 18 teats, and a woman who claims her husband is from the star Sirius.
- Diagonal Billing: Masina and Mastroianni, both big stars of Italian cinema, are billed this way in the opening credits.
- Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Other than the fact that the variety show is a Christmas Special, the holiday really has little to do with the plot.
- Fang Thpeak: Lampshaded in a random gag where a guy dressed up as a vampire for the show is on the telephone. He struggles to speak clearly, until he gets frustrated and pulls out his fangs.
- Fanservice Extra: Three ridiculously muscled bodybuilders. Amelia is clearly turned on by all that beefy manhood, and insists on getting her picture taken with the bodybuilders.
- Foreshadowing: The power is briefly cut to the hotel where the cast of the show is staying, suggesting that maybe in 1980s Italy electricity isn't always reliable. The power later cuts out again just as Amelia and Pippo are starting to dance.
- Gaussian Girl: Pippo sits next to a woman in a bizarre outfit: she wears a sort of metal rig that holds a pane of glass in front of her face. When Pippo asks what's her deal, the woman says that it's "a soft focus screen" and "it makes me look younger." Then the woman looks through the glass at the camera and delivers some TV news patter.
- Info Dump: A reporter interviews Amelia in the opening scene, and gets her to drop a whole bunch of exposition about how she and Pippo had an act as "Ginger and Fred" imitating Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and how they eventually broke up the act and she married a different man.
- Ironic Juxtaposition: A billboard advertising "Keep Rome Clean" is visible above and behind a huge pile of garbage bags.
- Little People Are Surreal: Fellini had a habit of working little people into his movies. Amelia goes up to the next van that's arrived at the hotel, hoping that Pippo is inside, only to be startled when a whole troupe of little people comes out. During the variety show, the smarmy MC says "We are proud to present the tiniest dancers ever," and the little people do a whole number, dancing and playing music.
- Meet Cute: A meet-again cute. Pippo hasn't shown up at the hotel yet, and eventually Amelia, after asking the front desk to call her if he arrives, goes to bed. She tries to go to sleep but the man in the next room is snoring loudly. She pounds on the wall, then walks over to the next room to pound on the door—and when the door opens it's Pippo.
- Name and Name: Ginger and Fred
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Pippo reveals to Amelia that he's going to use the show as an opportunity to insult 60 million TV-addicted Italians. He will call them "pecoroni", which is a word meaning both "male sheep (ram)" and "gullible or spineless people." He emphasizes "pe-co-ro-ni", and if that wasn't enough, starts tap dancing while calling out "pe-co-ro-ni" in time.
- Running Gag: Absurdly over-sexualized Italian advertising. A billboard advertisement for sausage has a drawing of a topless woman offering up a plate of sausages. A TV commercial sells olive oil by showing a woman in a slutty French maid outfit pouring olive oil all over a lobster.
- Silly Simian: A random joke has Pippo being very amused by a chimpanzee that tries to pull off his shoes.
- Team Power Walk: Amusingly, it's the cast of the variety special, a bunch of D-listers and has-beens and weirdos, who do the power walk into the auditorium for the start of this show.
- Title Drop: The MC for the variety show, who cheerfully introduces "Ginger and Fred!"
- While You Were in Diapers: Evidently someone has been disputing points regarding tap dancing to Pippo, because when Amelia finds him downstairs he's telling that unseen someone: "While the great Fred was tap-dancing, you were wetting the bed!"
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The Rita Hayworth impersonator is a man. He's as nice as he can possibly be, but conservative Amelia is still upset, citing "transvestites" as one reason she wants to quit the show.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: The backstory is vague. It is said that the "Ginger and Fred" act ran for some 15 years, that Amelia and Pippo broke up sometime around 1940 and haven't seen each other for 30 years. The only problem is that the film seems to take place in the present day, and the presence of a Ronald Reagan impersonator certainly hints at the 1980s. That would mean that Pippa and Amelia haven't seen each other for more like 45 years, and they would have had to been Ginger and Fred impersonators starting 1925 or so, which would have been several years before the Astaire-Rogers combo became famous. The chronology gets even more confused later when there's a comment about them performing during the war.
