Spite Marriage is one of the most neglected of Keaton's films. In a way it does for the theater what Sherlock Jr.does for film: Keaton's Elmer Edgemont, pants presser extraordinaire, haunts a Broadway theater for love of the actress Trilby Drew. Catapulted onto stage, he turns a Civil War drama into the vaudevillian comic-disaster that is his life. Jilted by her fiancé, Drew draws the willing Elmer into a marriage for spite; only on his wedding night does he realize his true position. Dorothy Sebastian is a marvelous foil for Keaton as an inert and inebriated bride impervious to his ingenious machinations to get her into bed.