Welcome to the October 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 
OCTOBER 2024:
WANTED:
We’re still trying to get in touch with our friend from Finland who went by the name of Shobary (with the popular SW website with that title). If anyone has reliable contact information, please send us a message. We want to rescue and preserve the remnants of these two websites, like we’ve done with A Fistful of Pasta.
Emerging, ongoing and future improvement projects
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!
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 October we got the Italian release of Once Upon a Time in the West on 4K UHD, which offers only minimally better picture, but that doesn’t make up for almost no extras or language options. More interesting is the non-steelbook re-release of Red Sun in the UK, if you were waiting for that, as well as another smaller rarity out in Germany.
November will be a lot more interesting. First off is a slate of new releases in France, including some HD premieres, and (yet unconfirmed) these seem to be English-friendly. Also a new book on Leone, an HD premiere of Charley One Eye in the UK, and the rest are just re-releases.
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 9 new obituaries over the course of the last four weeks.
Check out “Cemetery with crosses”
Reviews:
Please contact us if you want your reviews published. We are especially looking for reviews of movies that have no, or very few, reviews in the SWDb. We publish them in all languages, and you don’t need to be a professional writer!
Schelle Colts fĂĽr Jeannie Lee BluRay und Filmbesprechung - The Spaghetti Western Database
Djurado film review - The Spaghetti Western Database
Djurado Filmkritik - The Spaghetti Western Database
The Other Blondie: JosĂ© MarĂa Zabalza’s 20,000 dĂłlares por un cadáver - The Spaghetti Western Database
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.
See you next month!
