AllMovie

In his last silent film, Buster Keaton plays a pants-presser who pines for aloof stage actress Dorothy Sebastian. When she is jilted by her fiance Edward Earle, Sebastian spitefully marries Keaton. He is ecstatic (or as ecstatic as the poker-faced comedian ever gets) until he finds out why Sebastian has said "I do." Disconsolately, Keaton takes a job on the crew of a boat owned by bootleggers. He rescues Sebastian from the crooks in the climax, and she realizes at last that she's really loved him all along. Though Buster Keaton had involuntarily given over much of the control of his pictures to his new bosses at MGM (for example, he was no longer permitted to perform his more dangerous stunts), Spite Marriage still contains several vintage Keaton moments, including his classic "putting a drunken woman to bed" routine. The film would be remade in 1944 as the Red Skelton vehicle I Dood It.