When Fellini goes bad . . . sounds like one of those old Discovery Channel programs, doesn’t it? But when Fellini goes bad, it can be an unmitigated disaster. Take Satyricon — please! Or City of Women, a film that only Fellini’s mother could love (or a dedicated Fellinista like Vincent Canby, whose review can be found here). It’s not that I dislike City of Women so much as that it tires me out. All of Fellini’s over-the-top impulses are on display, and precious few of the quiet moments that balance them out in his best films.

But I love the Maestro nevertheless, and Ginger and Fred (1986) is one of the reasons why. Although it’s definitely minor Fellini, there are unexpected pleasures lurking beneath the surface. Or maybe they’re expected, at least by anyone who knows anything about the director. There are touches of the Fellini-esqe, like his absolutely hilarious vision of a Rome stacked with garbage and riddled with over-the-top decadence (there’s a billboard of a woman and a sausage that, well . . .) His disgust with the Roman glitterati is on full display, as is his savage scorn of the ubiquitous television.

What is so satisfying about Ginger and Fred is our renewed acquaintance with Marcello Mastroianni, the remarkable actor who became a major star in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Here, he plays Pippo, a dancer of dubious original talent, who came to fleeting fame with his partner Amelia (Giulietta Masina) as Ginger and Fred, a knock-off of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. They’re called out of retirement after decades to appear in the cheesy television extravaganza “We Are Proud to Present,” alongside (among other things) midgets, celebrity-impersonators, mafiosi and a defrocked priest getting married right on the show.

Masina is fine as Amelia, now a provincial house-frau affronted by the evidence — surrounding her the moment she steps off the train — that they might not get the respect she feels they deserve. In one classic Fellini moment, she steps outside the confines of her second-rate hotel and is confronted by an alien world of bikers, transvestites and lounge lizards. Her face conveys mixed loathing and amusement with a wonderful economy.

The heart of the film is Mastroianni, whose Pippo is an aging lothario who hasn’t quite gotten over Amelia, even after all these years. He is as tolerant of all the shenanigans as Amelia is horrified, and looks upon the miscreants and misfits with an amused beneficence. There’s a certain child-like naiveté about his performance that is very appealing. In one scene, he is being strung along for the amusement of a crass author’s high-brow friends. Amelia gets that he is being made fun of and tries to extricate her friend; Pippo, filled with a childlike delighted at being taken seriously, keeps blundering along, to the increasing hilarity of his tormentors. It’s a scene that could have veered into handkerchief territory if it weren’t for the unsentimental performances of Mastroianni and Masina.

Ultimately, much of the pleasure of Ginger and Fred stems from nostalgia at seeing Mastroianni play the lovable rue once again. Watching him, you can see the ghost of his other Fellini roles: Guido from 8½, Marcello from La Dolce Vita and even Snaporaz from City of Women. You can also see what made Fellini great, maybe not full on as in his fifties and sixties masterpieces, but still potent all the same. Fellini, in his old age, was still a complete original. Given the derivative nature of so much cinema these days, that, to my mind, is worth a lot.

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