[PHP] file_get_contents ($file) works -- file_get_contents ($url) returns false

[René Fournier]

Strange problem I'm having on Mac OS X Server 10.6 running PHP 5.3. Any call of 
file_get_contents() on a local file works fine -- the file is read and 
returned. But any call of file_get_contents on a url -- any url, local or 
remote -- always returns false.

var_dump (file_get_contents ('http://www.google.com/'));

bool(false) 

I've checked php.ini, and the obvious seems okay:

        allow_url_fopen => On => On
 
Any ideas?

...Rene