Windsor II Theatres

mondojustin on November 24, 2011 at 2:30 am

Hello I’m currently working on a book about the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and am looking for photos and programs/newspaper clippings etc from each city in which the film premiered in originally in 1968. If you saw the film in it’s initial run in the theater have a good memory of your experience, I’d love to interview you about seeing it. To date I have interviewed over 20 people that have worked on the film, and several close members in the Kubrick camp as well. If you can help please email me at

RSM3853 on December 27, 2012 at 6:54 pm

Movies that played at the Windsor Theater in Houston Texas from 12/19/62 to 12/31/75. Research is from old microfilms of The Houston Post and The Houston Chronicle. The dates are the Wednesday of the opening week. 12/19/62 The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm 03/13/63 How the West Was Won 11/06/63 Under the Yum Yum Tree 12/18/63 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 04/29/64 Becket 07/22/64 Circus World 10/14/64 Three Penny Opera 10/21/64 Giant 10/28/64 The World of Henry Orient 11/04/64 Oklahoma 11/11/64 Pajama Party 11/18/64 Julius Caesar 12/02/64 Topkapi 12/23/64 Cheyenne Autumn 03/17/65 The Greatest Story Ever Told 06/30/65 The Hallelujah Trail 09/22/65 Bambole 10/06/65 The Pawnbroker 11/03/65 Repulsion 11/17/65 The Redeemer 12/01/65 Red Line 7000 12/08/65 Backfire 12/15/65 Battle of the Bulge 03/30/66 Doctor Zhivago 02/01/67 Grand Prix 09/20/67 The Sound of Music 11/08/67 Far from the Madding Crowd 02/14/68 Billion Dollar Brain 03/06/68 Doctor Zhivago 04/10/68 2001: A Space Odyssey 11/13/68 Ice Station Zebra 03/26/69 Oliver! 11/12/69 The Gypsy Moths 12/17/69 Marooned 03/18/70 Anne of the Thousand Days 06/24/70 Too Late the Hero 08/05/70 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever 11/11/70 Julius Caesar (AIP) 12/23/70 Song of Norway 03/17/71 My Fair Lady 04/28/71 THX 1138 05/26/71 Blue Water, White Death 06/16/71 The Abominable Dr. Phibes 06/30/71 The Grissom Gang 07/14/71 The Light at the Edge of the World 08/04/71 The Panic in Needle Park 08/18/71 Windjammer 09/01/71 Unman, Wittering, and Zigo 09/22/71 Doctor Zhivago 10/13/71 Kotch 12/22/71 The Go-Between 02/02/72 Sacco and Vanzetti 02/16/72 Cabaret 06/28/72 Portnoy’s Complaint 10/04/72 Deliverance 12/20/72 Jeremiah Johnson 02/21/73 Steelyard Blues 03/28/73 Slither 04/18/73 Scorpio 05/09/73 Lady Caroline Lamb 05/30/73 Fiddler on the Roof (pop prices) 06/06/73 This is Cinerama 09/05/73 Ludwig 09/19/73 Slither 09/26/73 A Warm December 10/03/73 Hit! 10/17/73 The Outside Man 10/31/73 Massacre in Rome 11/21/73 Jimi Hendrix 12/19/73 The Paper Chase 02/20/74 Alfredo, Alfredo 03/13/74 Man of La Mancha (pop prices) 03/20/74 Where the Lilies Bloom 05/08/74 Kazablan 05/22/74 Huckleberry Finn 06/12/74 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex/Bananas 06/19/74 Macon County Line 07/03/74 Big Bad Mama 07/10/74 The Terminal Man 07/17/74 That’s Entertainment 12/25/74 The Little Prince 01/22/75 The Nickel Ride 01/29/75 Pardon My Blooper 02/12/75 Mr. Ricco 02/19/75 Child Under a Leaf 02/26/75 Claudine/Harry and Tonto 03/05/75 Report to the Commissioner 03/12/75 Gone With the Wind 03/19/75 The Great Waldo Pepper 06/25/75 Rollerball 10/01/75 The Master Gunfighter 10/15/75 The Giant Spider Invasion 10/22/75 Whiffs 10/29/75 The Ark of Noah 11/19/75 Weed 11/26/75 2001: A Space Odyssey 12/17/75 The Killer Elite. My research stops here, since I have done 34+ big cities and had to pick a cutoff date…if anyone with access to Houston microfilms (closest to me are in State College, PA) and time wants to post further years, I’m sure we all would enjoy and appreciate it. Check other Houston theaters for movie openings from 1960-75 as I am able to post the data.

Coate on June 4, 2016 at 4:56 am

Anyone remember which movie replaced the long run of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” here?

rivest266 on July 4, 2023 at 8:27 pm

Opened on December 21st, 1962. Grand opening ad posted.

dallasmovietheaters on August 11, 2025 at 2:52 am

The Windsor Shopping Center was a 12-store, $8 million plaza that had opened theatre-less in 1959. A&P and Ben Franklin appeared to be the main draws. That changed when the center opened a spot for a Jefferson Amusement widescreen theatre - the first Cinerama theater in the state. It was known as the Windsor Cinerama Theatre - a name it retained from it launch December 21, 1962 into March of 1976 before becoming the Windsor Theatre for three years (though the Cinerama sign was still in place even past the theater’s days).

An unfortunate twinning transformed the venue to the Windsor 1 & 2 Theatre on May 11, 1979 with “Murder by Decree” and “The Dark.” The twinning took seat count down to 976 seats.

The name was fine-tuned to the Windsor Twin Theatre beginning on August 17, 1979. Jimmy Duncan’s Cineplex Corp. of Houston took on three Tercar locations on December 1, 1982 with the Windsor, Gaylynn, and Memorial Twin. At that point the name was ‘smithed to the Cineplex Windsor II Theatres.

Cineplex went bankrupt and Lee Roy Mitchell’s Cinemark Circuit took on its theatre portfolio on January 30, 1987. Cinemark called it the Windsor II Theatres. The dog days were dead ahead when the Windsor moved it from first-run for the first time in more than 25 years of operation to a flop-house, double-feature, $1 discount runs with a two-for-one admission policy in September 9, 1988 trying to wring out every nickel it could.

Cinemark ran with that not finding enough nickels closing on the Martin Luther King Day holiday on January 16, 1989. A picture of that closure is in photos. It was turned into a night club in 1990. The venue appears to have been demolished following its night club days in 2009 in favor of a Golf Galaxy retail store.