Dropped in on Italian film director (7)
I believe the answer is:
fellini
'film director' is the definition.
(director Federico Fellini)
'dropped in on italian' is the wordplay.
'dropped' becomes 'fell' (I've seen this before).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'italian' becomes 'I' (abbreviation for Italian).
'fell'+'in'+'i'='FELLINI'
(Other definitions for fellini that I've seen before include "Shooting Italian" , "Italian film-maker, d. 1993" , "Federico ------- (1920-1993), Italian film director" , "Federico --, Italian film producer" , "It. director of Satyricon" .)