Now this closure personally hurts me and my lonely movie-going proclivities.
No sooner than I had heard and written about the sad shuttering of the NorthPark Mall discount theatre, as I was going to catch an afternoon screening of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark last week, I was informally greeted with a well-designed flyer taped on the door, letting me know that Sunday was the final day that the Windsor 10 theatre would remain open.
Since returning to Oklahoma City a few years ago, this movie theatre had been my regular go-to cinema—well, as regular as possible—sometimes seeing two or three movies on a particularly good week for American films, many times with only myself, a large soda and the imagined tumbleweeds in the vacant movie-house. For me, it was truly the only way to see a film during these summer days, far from the maddening crowds.
When I wrote fawningly about the theatre right here a couple of months ago, many people commented that they were not only surprised it was open, but that it was still in the business of first-run films; with a typically empty parking lot on most days I was there, believe me, I was just as surprised as anyone that it had stayed open for as long as it did, but always eternally grateful each time it still was.
Except this time.
Hidden from view among the townhouses and condominiums of Windsor, behind such stores as the Crest Supermarket and Goodwill Thrift Store, the B&B Windsor 10, 4623 N.W. 23rd St., survived in that secret spot for a few decades, once one of the more popular theatres not only along N.W. 23rd corridor, but in Oklahoma City in general. Older moviegoers still have wistful remembrances of sell-outs and full houses, but, sadly, that was a long time ago and time always forgets.
Like most theatres that can’t keep up these days, the Windsor 10 was a relative dinosaur in this futuristic age of digital projectors and stadium seating; tickets were purchased at the concession stand, with usually only one or two employees sleepily working the floor, sweeping the same spot over and over again. I’m willing to bet that it was the manager that started the movies upstairs, always a tell-tale sign of a long-failing movie business.
So I settled in for the Guillermo del Toro-produced scare film, knowing that it would be the final movie that I’ll probably ever see in this theatre, which scared me far more; it’s beautifully sad how something like a movie theatre can not only remind you of your own mortality, but also of your own growing decrepitness, both in pop culture and in real life.
So long, Windsor 10, and thanks for all the flicks, even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.
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