ABC Twin Cinema I & II

Brownwood was getting its first hardtop theater in nearly 20 years when Texas National Theatres Circuit announced the Twin Cinema I & II. Groundbreaking was in November of 1971 with the last indoor theater built in 1942. The cinema would be adjacent to the Commerce Square Shopping Center. It would be fully automated with Eprad equipment and architects were Kneer & Hamm from Fort Worth. It was the circuit’s fourth multi-screen and their strategy was to target cities which had aging one-screen downtown theaters. It was added to a strip shopping center that had two existing buildings.

The theater opened March 30, 1972 with Warren Beatty and Goldie Hahn in “$” and Nigel Devenport in “Living Free”. Cinemas I and II had identical 350-seat auditoriums. The theater played a wide array of eye-raising horror films and exploitation double-features. The venerable Interstate Theatres Circuit took on the location on November 23, 1973 bringing more family-friendly and traditional Hollywood fare. The ABC/Interstate folks wasted no time trying to raise the bar from the Texas National Days stating, “We will try to offer better entertainment for the mid-Texas area”.

The theatre became known as the ABC Twin Cinema I and II. “Star Wars”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Rocky”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and many other legendary films played there. The theatre had a good run but went out of business. It was still in excellent condition in the 2020’s and could be purchased with its two neighboring business for $1.7 million.

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