'BRIDE' WED TO INTRIGUING STORY OF AUSTRIAN ARTIST.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Call her the muse of the early 20th century or fin de siecle Vienna's most accomplished groupie. Whichever, Alma Schindler definitely got around. And whatever else she may have been accused of in her time - and there was plenty - poor taste certainly wasn't a charge that could stick.

The Austrian beauty spread her inspiration around most branches of the fine arts by marrying three of the era's finest practitioners - composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius and writer Franz Werfel - and conducting a tempestuous affair with painter Oskar Kokocshka, the title of whose expressionist masterpiece in which she appears, ``Bride of the Wind,'' was borrowed for this biofilm.

And those are just the lovers director Bruce Beresford (``Driving Miss Daisy,'' ``Double Jeopardy'') could fit into the movie. Gustav Klimt (presented, contrary to most rumors, as a platonic pal here), Enrico Caruso, Arnold Schonberg and Gerhart Hauptmann were also among those often mentioned as full-fledged members of the Alma Mutual Admiration Society.

But when it can pry itself away from the subject's romances - which, due to their voluminous nature, isn't often - the goal of this handsome, sometimes stodgy, borderline silly and sporadically delirious film is to paint Alma as a frustrated but ultimately triumphal artist in her own right. And, contradictorally but not inappropriately for her time and culture, a harbinger of free-living modern womanhood.

Since screenwriter Marilyn Levy based most of her script on Alma's diaries and autobiographies, this rather admiring presentation probably isn't objectively accurate. The young Australian actress Sarah Wynter's portrayal of Alma, while not lacking in intelligence, charm and sexiness, is missing a certain passionate specificity that could explain the subject's irresistible allure to so many great minds (Georgina Hale's frau fatale interpretation in Ken Russell's feverishly inventive, 1974 ``Mahler'' may not have been any more truthful, but it was, crucially, mesmerizing).

Still, Alma's adventures, and the lost world she lived them through, were so intriguing that the film is always interesting, even if it does miss the main chance to plumb her full complexity.

Filmed on actual Viennese locations, often in vintage costumes with, of course, a soundtrack to die for, ``Bride'' guides us through the first half of its heroine's life with more attention to incident than character.

Mahler (Jonathan Pryce, looking if not quite vivifying the part) insists that his much younger wife give up her own music writing to better devote herself to their family. By the time he dies, she's already had a fling with future Bauhaus founder Gropius (Simon Verhoeven), and as World War I looms, she drops the solicitous but uptight German architect for the fiery painter Kokoschka. Played by the striking French actor Vincent Perez, Kokoschka is far and away the film's liveliest, wittiest presence, especially when he takes to escorting a life-size Alma doll around town after the flesh-and-blood version has rejected him.

As this scenario would have it, all of her lovers stifled Alma in one way or another until the equally free-thinking Werfel (Gregor Seberg) came along, encouraged her creativity and ultimately brought her to where she really belonged - Hollywood - once the Nazis took over in 1938. The movie ends a good 15 years before that. Alma lived until 1964.

Although the dialogue often sounds like a docent lecture (Vienna suffered a cake shortage during the war, we're informed), and sometimes just outright clinks (``Last week you said you loved me,'' an outgrown suitor whines; ``That was last week!'' moving-on Alma explains over her shoulder), it also gives her such great lines as ``I was never popular with mothers,'' said as Kokoschka's mom lurks outside her building with a loaded pistol.

All in all, ``Bride of the Wind'' brings us wafts of fascinating history without ever really blowing us away.

``BRIDE OF THE WIND''

(Rated R: nudity, sex, violence)

The stars: Sarah Wynter, Jonathan Pryce, Vincent Perez, Simon Verhoeven, Gregor Seberg.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Bruce Beresford. Written by Marilyn Levy. Produced by Lawrence Levy and Evzen Kolar. Released by Paramount Classics.

Running time: One hour, 39 minutes.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.; Monica, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Three stars