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Top Line
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Cauldron Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (29th August 2024). |
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The Film
 Ted Angelo (A Quiet Place in the Country's Franco Nero) is a burnt-out, boozy writer in Columbia to write a series of books on the conquistadors. When money stops coming from his publisher (and ex-wife) Maureen (A View to a Kill's Mary Stavin), he calls her and learns that she has fired him and will only provide him with enough money for a return ticket to Italy (not New York). When hotel maid and occasional lover Juanita (Shirley Hernandez) tries to sell him an Aztec dagger which she claims is part of a treasure her boyfriend Paco (break dancer Robert Redcross) fished from the bottom of a river, Ted decides to cash in the plane ticket for a money-making opportunity. Among Paco's horde, Ted discovers a diary which his professor friend Alonso (The Spider Labyrinth's William Berger) identifies as belonging to Nicuesa whose ship supposedly disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle on the way back to Spain; however, the presence of the diary and the treasure suggests that he actually took a different route. Alonso agrees to take the dagger to private collector and ex-Nazi Heinrich Holzmann (Cool Hand Luke's George Kennedy) to see if he is interested in buying the treasure. When Alonso turns up in the morgue after having been tortured to death, and the antiques dealer he consulted is discovered with a bullet in the head, Ted demand Paco show him where he actually got the treasure. Paco takes him into the mountains to a cave where Ted discovers not just Nicuesa's missing ship but the flying saucer that picked it up and presumably crashed into the mountain. Seeing the potential of a journalistic scoop about definitive existence of extraterrestrials, Ted contacts a tabloid buddy, but soon he is on the run from various parties interested in obtaining the treasure or the ship, or silencing him about the existence of aliens. His only ally is Alfonso's protege June (Chaplin's Deborah Moore), but their chances of escape shrink when they encounter the "Alien Terminator". A strange hybrid Italian action adventure from the late eighties as the industry struggled to compete against television, video, and dwindling world sales, Top Line is simultaneously everything-but-the-kitchen-sink and not enough of what it throws in. The first half-hour plays like a humorless Romancing the Stone-esque treasure hunt, only introducing the science fiction element with the cave sequence which lasts about five minutes before another forty minutes of double-crosses and chases in which formidable-seeming villains are introduced and then quickly killed off – including assassins played American expatriate English dubbing artists by Larry Dolgin (Caligula: The Untold Story) and Steven Luotto, son of dubbing director Gene Luotto – before the "alien terminator" (L.A. Wars' Rodrigo Obregón) that gave the film its U.K. video release title turns up for about ten minutes. We do get some gooey make-up and optical effects by Gaetano and Francesco Paolocci (Robowar) – including a transformation that plays like the extraterrestrial equivalent of The Howling's effects set-piece – but it's not enough to keep Top Line from being a footnote in Nero's career. Director Nello Rossati had helmed a couple erotic dramas and comedies that were not exported outside Italy – apart from the Ursula Andress vehicle The Sensuous Nurse – so this science fiction mashup is as "alien" to the jobbing director as his other Nero effort Django Strikes Again also shot in Columbia. 
Video
Unreleased theatrically or on home video in the United States, Top Line was primarily available as dupes of Japanese- or Greek-subtitled tape releases until Cauldron Films' debuted the film on Blu-ray last year as a limited edition followed by this standard edition. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new 2K scan of the negative and looks spotless. Any defects in the image are those of the original photography – including a few rushed sequences like a fiery truck crash that should look spectacular but is occluded by out-of-focus foreground shrubbery – and the optical effects. The Paolucci effects creations benefit from the higher resolution in their rubbery textures, melting latex, and abundance of slime while the optical effects work is occasionally grubby-looking but quaint for the period and budget. As expected with late eighties Italian exploitation, cinematographer Guglielmo Mancori (Manhattan Baby) employs some on-camera diffusion in some of the sunny exteriors and wide landscape shots. 
Audio
Audio options include English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono options including both English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Italian track. Since the film was shot in English with sync-sound, the English track is the way to go even though the subtitles suggest the Italian track follows it fairly closely. Dialogue is generally clear even during the location shoots – some bits may be ADR'd along with some supporting performances – effects are crisp, while the scoring of Maurizio Dami (Green Inferno) is underwhelming due to the instrumentation more than the recording. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by with film historian Eric Zaldivar who has not only written on spaghetti westerns but has a personal friendship with Nero that extended to penning an aborted sequel to Django titled Django Lives! which ended up being extensively rewritten by John Sayles (Alligator) to the extent that he was able to change the protagonist's name when Enzo G. Castellari wanted to turn his long-gestating, development hell project "The Badlanders" into a sequel to Keoma. He discusses the circumstances of the film's production and the state of the Italian film industry in the eighties - along with a lengthy discussion of so-called Indian Jones-clones, specifically Italian ones which would make an interesting wider discussion on some other release - although his knowledge of Nero's non-western, non-mainstream career is a tad spotty as he notes Top Line and The Wild, Wild Planet as the only films Nero made that were remotely like horror films, failing to cite The Third Eye (which Joe D'Amato remade as Beyond the Darkness with the producer's daughter Donatella Donati who served as an assistant director on Top Line at a time when Filmirage was on the decline). The track also features audio interviews with actors Moore and Redcross. Moore was a family friend of Nero's so she felt comfortable traveling to Columbia to do the film, noting the only awkwardness being when her jealous boyfriend showed up on the set. Redcross reveals that he was not born in Jamaica the country but Jamaica, Queens and had toured as a break dancer before the film. He recalls working with Nero and his family's and friend's reactions to seeing the film. Also included are some interview excerpts with actors Brett Halsey (The Devil's Honey) - who shed light on Berger's drug abuse in the seventies and the tragic death of his wife – and Richard Harrison (Orgasmo Nero) on the Italian film industry.  "The Strange Case of Ted Archer" (33:04) is an interview with film historian Eugenio Ercolani about the career of director Rossati who started out as an actor and spent a few years trying to helm a feature film with some of his theater friends, eventually directing the erotic drama Bella di giorno moglie di notte followed by a string of morbid erotic dramas, sex comedies, and the zombie comedy Io zombo, tu zombi, lei zomba that were mostly not exported before his type of films fell out of favor with Silvio Berlusconi's new model of television and film production in the eighties. Ercolani discusses the brief resurgence of spaghetti westerns in the eighties and the belief it was a viable genre before the flop of Duccio Tessari's Tex e il signore degli abissi whereupon Django Strikes Again was retooled to be more like Rambo. He not only reveals that Sergio Corbucci was supposed to direct the sequel, but that Top Line had also started out as a western before its current incarnation. "Black Top!" (22:17) is an interview with actor Nero who reveals that it was he that suggested to producer Fernando Ghia to shoot The Mission in Cartagena and that he had a number of friends in the area like painter Alejandro Obregón who asked him to help his son find film work leading to his casting here and in the Italian/Russian co-production Jonathan of the Bears. The casting of Moore was a similar situation with friend Roger Moore. He recalls having fun shooting the film but also is hard-pressed to classify it in one genre. "Alien Terminated: The Alien Theories of Top Line by parapolitics researcher Robert Skvarla" (12:37) is a brief piece in which Skvarla notes that the film plot was actually pushing some theories about aliens that were then current or emerging in the community. 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover with the "Alien Terminator" cover on the inside.
Overall
A mishmash of action adventure, science fiction, and horror Top Line is simultaneously everything-but-the-kitchen-sink and not enough.
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