当朝太师的之女夏桐,因为新婚之夜丈夫意外去世,丈夫家人便想按当时律法将她处死殉夫。命悬一剑之际,夏桐穿越到了现代,在这里遇到了和自己夫君长相一致的凌氏集团继承人凌言。因为两人长相一致,导致夏桐将人错认。而凌言一误以为夏桐是精神有问题的骗子…。This very Kafka-esque film is Keaton's response to the Fatty Arbuckle scandal.[citation needed] Even though the central character's intentions are good, he cannot win, no matter how inventively he tries. He gets into various scraps with police officers throughout the film. Eventually, he unwittingly throws a bomb into a police parade and ends up being chased by a horde of cops.
At the end of the film, Keaton's character locks up the cops in the police station. However, the girl he is trying to woo disapproves of his behavior and gives him the cold shoulder. Therefore, he unlocks the police station and is immediately pulled in by the cops. The film ends with the title "The End" written on a tombstone with Keaton's pork pie hat propped on it.
One of Keaton's most iconic and brilliantly-constructed short films, Cops was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry in 1997.。