James Bond filmography of the Clint Eastwood character, Dirty Harry — was chosen for Moore to use in "Live and Let Die" rather than Bond's usual choice of Walther PPK. Spicer says "Roger Moore re-created Bond as an old-style debonair hero, more polished and sophisticated than Connery's incarnation, using the mocking insouciance he had perfected in his role as Simon Templar ... Moore's humour was a throwaway, and certainly in the later films, verged on self-parody. It was an essential strand in the increasingly tongue-in-cheek direction of the series which became more light-hearted, knowing and playfully intertextual". Chapman noted that Moore was the
Roger Moore Ford and Eleanor Parker as Lawrence's brother Cyril. That same year, he played a supporting role in the swashbuckler "The King's Thief" starring Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven and George Sanders. In the 1956 film "Diane", Moore was billed third again, this time under Lana Turner and Pedro Armendariz, in a 16th-century period piece set in France with Moore playing Prince Henri, the future king. Moore was released from his MGM contract after two years following the film's critical and commercial failure. In his own words, "At MGM, RGM [Roger George Moore] was NBG [no bloody good]." Moore freelanced