my @movieList = ();
   my $index = 0;
   open(DATA, $dataFile);
   while (<DATA>) {
      chomp;
      if (/^\s+$/) { next; } # skip blank lines in datafile

      my @data = split("\t");
      my $title = &getString( shift(@data) );
      my $year = &getString( shift(@data) );

      my $movieRec = {
         'index' => $index,
         'title' => $title,
         'year' => $year,
      };
      push(@movieList, $movieRec);
      $index++;
   } # while
   close(DATA);