Music & Lyrics by Cole Porter When Fifty Million Frenchmen, "a musical comedy tour of Paris," opened in New York City on Thanksgiving Eve 1929, it instantly became one of Broadway's biggest hits. Robert Garland in The Telegram found it "rich, rowdy, and resourceful," while Brooks Atkinson in The Times pronounced it "brisk, crack brained, smartly accoutred and modishly salacious." To critic Gilbert W. Gabriel, it was "just the best thing of its sort in seven or so years."