In 3 films, stepping back in time to 1970s Phila.

Is it just me, or has the Philadelphia mayoral primary race seemed more like the everybody-make-nice town-meeting format favored in the early Republican presidential primaries? In a nutshell, ho-hum.

Nevertheless, in two days city voters will walk into their polling places and choose the middle-aged male Democrat who on Jan. 4, 2016, will be sworn in as mayor of Philadelphia on the stage of the Academy of Music.

Yes, I am aware that there are women candidates, and younger ones, and non-Democrats. No, I haven't forgotten that there is still a general election in November. And yes, in my heart of hearts I believe that anything can happen.

But trust me, barring an act of God, whichever middle-aged man wins Tuesday's Democratic primary will be mayor until January 2024, if he decides he wants to run for a second term.

That's the way we roll in Philadelphia. Good mayor, bad mayor. White mayor, black mayor. Doesn't matter. Win one election for mayor and you get another term of equal or greater value for free. It must be in the City Charter.

Since the Democrats took control of City Hall in 1952, only one mayor, Bill Green, chose not to seek a second term without seeking higher statewide office.

In 1975, there was still a functioning Republican Party in Philadelphia. Shrewdly, or perhaps idiotically, the Republicans chose another Italian American politician from South Philadelphia, City Councilman Thomas Foglietta, to run against controversial top cop turned Mayor Frank Rizzo, who was seeking a second term. A young Australian filmmaker named Eddie Moses made a documentary about Foglietta's campaign called Underdog. Moses had arrived in Philadelphia the year before to earn a master of fine arts degree at Temple University.

In two years there, Moses completed three films that go to the heart of what Philadelphia means to the world and to the people who call it home. Just a year before the release of the original Rocky, Moses explored the city's gritty club-fighting scene, in a film called Boxer, which focused on the timeless characters and trainers at Joe Frazier's iconic Cloverlay Gym. A year later, Moses turned his keen eye to the Bicentennial celebration in the brooding and insightful The Birthday, which grapples with the promise and contradictions of America as played out on the untidy streets of Philadelphia.

Those three films will be shown at the International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut St., at 7 p.m. Wednesday, as part of the Archive Fever film series. Leonard Guernico, who chose the films from the Temple student film archive, will host and discuss the films afterward. The event is free and open to the public.

This time capsule of Philadelphia in the mid-'70s was disturbing to watch for a number of reasons. Maybe you had to have been there to understand the feelings Moses captured. Philadelphia in the 1970s was a conflicted city, half-full of civic pride and half-empty of civic confidence. It was a "national laughingstock," we told newcomers, in a weird preemptive inoculation against municipal embarrassment. We wanted to put Philadelphia down before a stranger could. It was an awkward defense mechanism.

"Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is," trumpeted a defiant tough-love billboard on the Schuylkill Expressway that articulated the prevailing attitude of self-loathing. If Philadelphia was a city born to hurt, we would do the hurting on our own terms.

If our sports teams stunk, we wore that stink like a reality-show celebrity fragrance - poured on by the quart. Heaven forgive a visiting team for even showing up inside the multipurpose concrete gladiatorial arena we called the Vet. Forget about visiting players and fans. Lions feared the Christians gathered in the 700 Level. "Remember what happened to Santa Claus?" read a sign before a Dallas-Eagles game. "And Santa Claus we like."

Writing via e-mail from Australia, Moses remembered the city of 40 years ago: "When I think back to those days at Temple lugging an Eclair 16mm camera with a heavy old Miller tripod through the streets of Philly, I think of my aching neck and shoulders, but also of sucking it all in, the streets, the people, the buildings, the oldness of Philly, the smell of edge mixed in with the solidity of a middle-class city, beautiful yet at the same time drab and ordinary."

There was drab and ordinary in shocking abundance in Philadelphia 40 years ago. It was the norm, not the exception. The exterior stonework of City Hall was the color of a cancerous lung. Center City looked older and sadder. What we take for granted today, the polish and grace, the commonplace swagger and joy, was unimaginable to most Philadelphians within the span of their own lifetimes. Moses, now 70, would not recognize the promised land he knew so well, but he still understands this city. As he put it, paraphrasing a friend:

"The American dream is nothing that will ever be achieved but it's always the process of striving, of constantly improving. . . .

"That pretty much holds true for most things."