If file exists... show it

[Handytman@aol.com]

I have, on my results page, a mechanism to identify one-click searches. It 
works because the search strings are category-names, and in a subdirectory of 
my public HTML directory, there are .GIF files named after the categories.

This works fine (the picture displays): 
[Unable to display image]

This also works (there's a category and a .GIF file named 'artifacts'):
[if file 
/opt2/home3/titanicmemorabilia/public_html/titanic/images/sys/artifacts.gif]
[then]
    [Unable to display image]
[/then]
[/if]

But this (what I really need) never works:
[if file /opt2/home3/titanicmemorabilia/public_html/titanic/images/sys/[value 
mv_searchspec].gif]
[then]
    [Unable to display image]
[/then]
[/if]

Any of you very experienced people know why not? Or see what I must change?

Thank you very much,
Rob Maurer