His Prehistroic Past (1914) was Charlie Chaplin's last film for Keystone Studios. He worked for them for one full year & this was his thirty-fifth short film, so obviously not much time or effort went into any one film, & most of them were pretty bad as a result.

This one was way more imaginative than usual by the fact of being set in prehistoric times. And there's certainly an automatic giggle just from seeing Charlie wearing an animal skin & bowler hat. Beyond that, however, it's a hootless dud.

Kuku the cave-jester; aka, Cleo the Medicine Man (Fritz Schade) dances foolishly for rotund King Lowbrow (Mac Swain) & his lovely harem. Charlie is wandering into the territory from some distant place, bringing with him his bowler, a corncob pipe, & having just invented fire so that he could light his pipe.

Sum Babee (Gene Marsh) the number one wife of King Lowbrow runs into the stranger & is instantly enamored of the flirtatious fellow. Every man in this territory is expected to have one-thousand wives, which strikes Charlie as an intriguing proposition, despite that it would also mean a thousand mothers-in-law.

When King Lowbrow falls over a cliff, Charlie just sort of moves in on the harem & takes over as king. But Lowbrow seems to have landed on his head so is all right, & makes his way home to reclaim his throne, er, rock.

After many irate doings that manage never to be funny, the rightful king regains his position, smashes Charlie on the head, & at that moment Charlie wakes up in the present.

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