External swf loading

it looks like yall have had a lot of questions concerning loading from external sources lately… well, ive got one more.

i need to load an external .swf intro a mc shell in another .swf. thats not a problem using
_root.contents.loadMovie(“content_1.swf”);
in which contents is an empty mc. however, this doesnt work when i put the contents mc inside another mc (its masked if that makes any difference).

does the _root function not work if the code and mc are not directly on the stage?

any help is appreciated

cheers