Historic Hilarity Meets Behan's Girlfriend in "Tombstone"

 October 28, 2025

   In the film "Tombstone," 1993, Johnny Behan makes a wimpy attempt to stop the Earps and Holliday as they come down Fremont Street (just like in real life!) and as they pass Fly's Boarding House, Behan exits, stage right, and goes into Fly's only to encounter this:

Sheriff Behan discovers his girlfriend

apparently doing a selfie in a semi-nude outfit.

   Here's a closer look at the scene. . .

Behan Sees Daylight!

   Sadie (Dana Delany) has assumed the Kaloma pose although we don't see her main attributes.

   And, for the record, here is the image they were aping. . .

Kaloma, 1914

   Both movies, "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp" dealt with this bogus image which in itself speaks to how crazy and peculiar popular history has always been. But, it's not new. Check out this clever take on morals from an early American writer.

Historic Hilarity

“In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care for his moral. It is there—that is to say it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, together with all that he ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to intend: so that it will all come very straight in the end.”

—Edgar Alan Poe, 1841