system() call to imagemagick doesn't work

[peloke]

I am trying to call imagemagick using the system command but it doesn't seem to work. I have this code:

system('convert -geometry 200x200 image.JPG theThumb.gif', $retval)

If I cut out the call between the single quotes I can execute it at the command prompt and it works fine
convert -geometry 200x200 image.JPG theThumb.gif

but the php script doesn't seem to do anything. When I run the php script from the command line, I get
syntax error near unexpected token 'theThumb.gif',$retvalue)'

safe_mode is off and $retval is 1...any ideas as to what to try next?

Thanks,
Eddie