How would you have cast it?
Quigley: John Wayne? Jimmy Stewart? Henry Fonda? Joel MacRae?
Marston; Basil Rathbone? George Sanders? Errol Flynn? (Flynn never played a heavy, but he was Australian, and he might have had fun playing the gad guy for a change!)
Crazy Cora: Gail Russell? Lucille Ball? Gloria Grahame? Susan Hayward? Ida Lupino?
Absurdity: A Statement or belief inconsistent with my opinion.
Randolph Scott, Gloria Grahame (or Ida Lupino), and maybe George Sanders, but I have to think about that. Maybe Raymond Massey.
shareBen Johnson as Quigley, Laurence Olivier as Marston and Ida Lupino as Cora.
shareThese are all good casting ideas.
Here's mine:
Robert Mitchum as Quigley
Jane Greer as Cora
Kirk Douglas as Marston
The main cast of "Out of the Past", reunited, and well-suited to the roles. Marston would have to be American instead of British, but that wouldn't matter to the plot. Or, maybe Douglas could do a British accent (I've never heard him try any kind of accent, but who knows, maybe he could have).
If this movie had been made in 1938:
Joel McCrae as Quigley
Barbara Stanwyck as Cora
Basil Rathbone as Marston
As far as I can remember, Rathbone never made a western. It would have been interesting to have seen him as a villain in one (even if it was set in Australia).