I havent seen this yet, but the way I get elements on top of a flash movie is by defining it as follows:
<object data="http://www.example.com/_flash/header.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="800" height="95" id="head" >
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<param name="movie" value="http://www.example.com/_flash/header.swf" />
<img src="../_img/body/space.gif" width="800" height="95" />
</object>
as opposed to
<object classid="clsid

27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0" width="800" height="95">
<param name="movie" value="../_flash/header.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<embed src="../_flash/header.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="800" height="95"></embed>
</object>
i'm not an expert at web design, but my guess is that it has to do with the object being embedded.