Welcome to the #Spagvember, I mean November 2024 
newsletter from the Spaghetti Western Database, your regular newsletter of what happened last month in the world of European westerns.
How to receive this newsletter automatically: Read instructions here on how to receive this to your inbox or notifications 
newsletter. Contact us if you have any questions or news/rumors/contributions.
NEW STUFF IN AND AROUND THE SWDB IN 
NOVEMBER 2024:
#Spagvemberfest wrap-up!
The annual #Spagvemberfest was a blast. Thanks to everyone, wherever on our globe, for participating and celebrating the spaghetti western. There are a few ways for you all to check out the discussions and movies watched during the month. One is our main Spagvemberfest 2024 discussion topic, the other is checking out the lists I have compiled from all the movies discussed in there either on ICheckmovies here, or on Letterboxd right here. That’s over 200 films listed, it was quite a bonanza. Of course do follow us on Letterboxd while you’re there. Also feel free to do a search for the hashtag on the social media network of your chosing, you may find interesting posts celebrating #Spagvemberfest, for example on Instagram.
Emerging, ongoing and future improvement projects
This is the same rundown of upates as last month, but not all of you read this diligently all the time and it is worth pointing out the great work being done as well as the areas we could use help with. We work on the SWDb every day, not all of that is visible. To give you an idea, but also if you’re wondering where you could get involved, here is an overview of our main projects right now:
- Project
master calendar Calendar - The Spaghetti Western Database - Project
company directory Company directory - The Spaghetti Western Database.
These are slowly progressing but are meant to be mostly companions to ongoing efforts to improve release date and biographical information in the database. Along with adding production and distribution companies to film pages, we also want to add more box office data and filming dates. Please contact with any info you have that is missing in the database, or volunteer to work on these projects, it’s all highly appreciated.
A steadily rising number of film pages in the database now have picture-powered dedicated credits pages. These are valuable to identify actors and characters. More are added every week. We are also working on making actor pages and categories tidier, including overview pages such as “actors by picture” and so forth, a new project led by @ItalianStranger
The locations project. Many location entries in the database are being fleshed out, pictures added, gps locations and google/bing maps directions added, and so forth. We will do a bigger announcement once we have reached some more substantial milestones, including linking to these new location pages from movie entries.
Both of these address major areas of information that bring people to the SWDb: people and places. This requires a lot of detective work, and we highly appreciate all those travelling to Spain or living there with helping out.
The featurettes project. We are cataloging home video special features to make it easier to research for example which people were covered in what documentary or interview on which DVD release.
Information about VHS releases in the database is still bad. Our VHS pages aren’t nearly as reliable and complete as we have it for DVD and BluRay. So we need information about releases, and covers, for all countries and languages. We are starting to include more Super8 information as well, starting with cover images.
Improving soundtrack pages is a future project we would like to intensify. We want the SWDb to be more thorough with original soundtrack releases, track listings and more.
These three are for the geeks and home video historians mostly, but it is worth provding clarity over what is out there and help old and new fans navigate their way through the spaghetti western landscape, on all formats. And now to two touger subjects:
technical improvements for the SWDb, including a better search, which will require time, expertise and money, all of which aren’t plentiful. Donations welcome, maybe at some point then I could hire someone to do it. This month we have already expanded our server’s storage size and performance, which has made the database so much faster, but also doubled our cost.- More outreach: Help us spread the word about the SWDb into the far corners of the internet, and beyond the English-speaking spots. Outreach is also what is needed to make our calls for donations reach a bigger audience.
… as always: join the SWDb, help out, it will make it better 
You don’t have to become a full time editor or official staff to contribute. Anything from being active in the forum to correcting mistakes to joining entire improvement projects is more than welcome. From all over the world, in all languages, we welcome help!
Those of you who feel inclined to donate a dollar or euro or yen or real or whatever, head here. PayPal has improved the donation experience, check it out - and you don’t even need a PayPal account to donate. Also, whenever you shop at Amazon, click on one of the SWDb’s Amazon links first, it doesn’t matter which one and what you buy. We can really use the cash to beef up the server infrastructure, and if we can get enough donations we should finally hire someone to fix some major issues with the underlying tech to make the SWDb better and safer again.
SWDb 
Letterboxd
If you’re a Letterboxd user, we hope you follow the official SWDb Letterboxd HQ account. Click here to learn more about that. And your reminder: all the revised film pages in the SWDb have a direct link to their respective LB entry and the bottom.
Latest exclusive on our LB page:
Home video news:
In November we got a whole set of great titles in France, some long sought-after, and these are partially English-friendly, too (which is unusual for French releases), so check these out. Also new is a Charley-One-Eye release in the UK (for which we’ll have a review for you soon), a new book by Frayling and Leone, and the rest are mostly re-issues.
December may still see some surprise announcements possibly, but so far already shaping up well. There’ll be a 5-disc edition of Django in Germany as well as the third Winnetou instalment arriving on 4K as well. Unfortunately only DVD, but another overdue Corbucci movie also gets a re-issue (we hope the quality is fine), the rest are mostly re-issues, but The Five Man Army and Botte di Natale get upgrades in Italy, and there’s some cool soundtrack releases to check out. Overall not bad yet.
Our calendar is already expanding into February and beyond however, and gets updated several times a week. As always, stay tuned and keep sending us rumors and inside info! Don’t forget to use our Amazon links if you can.
Visit the SWDb home video release calendar
Obituaries
Our head of obits, the spaghettiologist @Tom_B had to update the boot hill cemetery with an unfortunate 7 new obituaries over the course of the last four weeks.
Check out “Cemetery with crosses”
New book!
See you next month!