Load Movie loop not working

First time poster - hope this forum is still getting some use.

I'm trying to create a "for" loop to load thumbs into existing movie clips using the following code:

var total=17;
for (i=8; i<=total; i++) {
loadMovie("thumbs/thumb"+[i]+".jpg",_root.thumb[i]);
trace (i);
}

This should load thumbs 9-17. The trace shows the variable is incrementing but I'm not getting the thumbs to load. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

J

Code:

---

loadMovie("thumbs/thumb"+i+".jpg",_root["thumb"+i]);

---

Thanks so much. Not sure why the target must be grouped with the variable but whatever works. Thanks again.

J