First Timer - Form Variable

I'm writing some javascript functions to process variables from a form. Running into a few hitches, wonder if anyone can clarify what I think must be pretty easy questions but my searches don't find any answers....

My html page is using the form variable values to do some calculations and display images in a new window.

One of the form objects is a <select> looking like this:
<form name="imgform">
<select name="imgct">
<option value=totalimgs selected>all
<option>3
<option>4
<option>5
.
.
.
</select>

and I want the selected option "all" to be loaded with the value of a predeefined variable "totalimgs". When I later access it using

var imgct=document.imgform.imgct.value;

The above obviously returns a string value of "totalimgs", not the value of the variable itself.