Passing variables into actions (?)

probably not the most technical way to name my question but,

i’m basically trying to get a handle on how to pass variables into actions like “loadMovie”

since i’m getting variables from an xml file i need to be able to do stuff with them like if the variable’s equal to “about.swf” I need to pass it to loadmovie like this:

function NaviGate()
 {
 _root.main.loadMovie(selected);
} 

If i trace selected I get my variables coming in… in fact I get all of them
about.swf, home.swf, etc. no quotation marks in the variable.

is what i’m trying to do correct? b/c my function produces no results (NaviGate)!

do i need the quotes in there? since when you hard code loadMovie it usually is like this:

_root.main.loadMovie("about.swf");

any help is greatly appreciated!