the 1940s, it became very popular due to Hollywood's "Latin" musicals. RKO Pictures' offerings were particularly influential, notably Too Many Girls (1940), in which Desi Arnaz appeared as a conga-playing Argentine student. Spanish-Catalan bandleader Xavier Cugat, who gave Arnaz his musical start, helped to popularize the dance, but the biggest impact belonged to Arnaz himself. It is prominently featured in the 1941 Deanna Durbin film, It Started With Eve, in which Durbin and Charles Laughton dance the dance together in a nightclub. With its simple march step, the interlinking of dancers circling about in single file, and one-two-three-bump rhythm with the fourth beat strongly marked, the dance was not only attractive but also readily accessible to US and other foreign audiences. The dance started to gain a foothold in the US around 1929, when the original La Conga nightclub opened its doors in Manhattan. It is believed that the La Conga was at Broadway and 51st Street. By 1937, the conga was well known in New York. The widespread popularity of the dance resulted in many cultural references in contemporary media. For example, the conga line was a recurring theme in Warner Bros. animated cartoons of the 1940s. This music and dance form has become totally assimilated into Cuba's musical heritage and has been used in many film soundtracks in the US and Mexico. One of the earliest and most successful of 20th-century Cuban musical exports, the conga lacked the polyrhythmic sophistication of the son, mambo, or salsa but served to nurture the future receptivity of an international public to the wider gamut of Cuban musical styles. In popular culture In the 1950 Malayan movie entitled "Twin Sisters (Kembar?)", in the opening scene, a conga line is performed by the guests in a party scene. The 1955 musical film adaptation of My Sister Eileen features a conga line as a recurring gag. In the 1963 film Billy Liar, a scene at the Locarno Dance Hall in Manchester features the conga line. In 1984 the British band Black Lace reached number ten in the UK charts with the song "Do the Conga". In 1985 the Cuban-American band Miami Sound Machine reached number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 with the song "Conga". The long-time jingle for Dad's Old-Fashioned Root Beer employed a conga beat. The weekly fundraising event held by the charitable organisation Phone Credit For Refugees every Friday is