FALL MOVIE PREVIEW: DECEMBER

Schindler's List Starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagalle, Embeth Davidtz. Directed by Steven Spielberg. They called themselves Schindlerjuden-''Schindler's Jews.'' During World War II, when the Jewish population of Krakow, Poland, was being eliminated, they worked for German war profiteer Oskar Schindler. For three years, the handsome, cognac-sipping factory owner charmed, bribed, and cajoled the powerful Nazis around him in order to save his workers from executioner Amon Goeth, who ran the Plaszow camp where 40,000 to 80,000 Jews died. The 1,200 on Schindler's list survived. In 1982, Australian writer Thomas Keneally turned the stories of the Schindlerjuden into the novel Schindler's List, and Hollywood came calling. Though Steven Spielberg quickly purchased rights to the book, the project went through two other directors and three writers before he finally decided to make the movie himself-as a three-hour drama shot in documentary-style black and white, no less. ''Schindler was a rare character-amidst all this evil was the emergence of this inexplicable goodness,'' says MCA president Sidney Sheinberg. But the magnitude of the story's Holocaust setting stymied the first two screenwriters. Novelist Keneally tossed in the towel after giving the script a lengthy first pass. Kurt Luedtke (Out of Africa) toiled over his draft for four years before calling it quits. At one point, Spielberg backed away from directing the film and decided instead to produce it, but his plans to use Sydney Pollack behind the camera came to nothing. Martin Scorsese, too, was in, then out. Last year, when writer Steven Zaillian (Searching for Bobby Fischer) turned in a script that met with Spielberg's approval, the director put it on his schedule, getting Sheinberg's okay to supervise postproduction of Jurassic Park from Poland. ''A lot of people at Universal thought he was crazy,'' says Sheinberg. ''I didn't. Steven is the most organized man on earth.'' By the time cameras rolled in Krakow, Spielberg had spent a year trying to find his perfect star. ''Harrison Ford was a little too old to play 34,'' says veteran Spielberg producer Gerald Molen. ''Costner wanted it. But Steven wanted (someone who could personify) Oskar Schindler for the role.'' Spielberg found him in Irish actor Liam Neeson (Darkman, Husbands & Wives), 40, whom he saw on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Working with 119 actors and 30,000 extras, Spielberg completed filming three days under his 75-day shooting schedule and within his lowest budget ($23 million) since 1985's The Color Purple. The only thing he didn't anticipate was stepping into a controversy. The World Jewish Congress protested his plans to shoot at Auschwitz/Birkenau-''within the perimeter of what is the largest graveyard in the world,'' says Molen. ''Steve met with them in New York, respected their objections, and we devised a way to shoot outside the gate. We built our own barracks and backed trains into Birkenau.'' With Schindler's List complete, the first verdict comes from the Universal brass, and it's an unexpected one, given the director's known ability to put the squeeze on the emotions of his audience: ''It looks like it was directed by Ingmar Bergman,'' says one surprised exec. ''It's almost underplayed. Will he get credit for not being manipulative?'' Buzz: Good question, and probably the one that will determine Schindler's fate. If the critics back it, Spielberg could finally win his Oscar.