Questions about words 「きいてはいた」, 「見て見たい」, 「ってえ」and 「つらあ」

Question

I found them in the following sentence.

女ってえのはざんこくな動物ときいてはいたが　これほどまでとは思わなかったぜ　どんな形相のオバチャンが演出してるのか　つらあ見て見たいもんだね

1) For the verb 「きいてはいた」, is its definition same as 「きいた」or 'heard'? What is the difference between the both verbs?　I'm not sure if the はいた came from verb 「吐く」.

2) For the verb 「見て見たい」, what is the difference between it and the verb 「見たい」?

3) For the words 「ってえ」and 「つらあ」, do I correctly understand that the alphabets 「え」and 「あ」added to the words 「と」quotation particle and 「つら」 just for emphasizing speaker's expression?

Answer 1

1. きいてはいた（聞いてはいた） is 聞いていた (to have heard repeatedly/constantly) with the contrastive particle は. This は conveys the feeling of "certainly did, but...".
2. 見て見たい（見てみたい） is 見る (to see) with て＋みる (to try to do something and see the results) and たい (want). So, the sentence is "want to try to see" as opposed to "want to see". http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/skills/grammar/sentences/?grammarid=512
3. ってえ and つらあ are shitamachi (Tokyo) dialect. ってえ is a corruption of っていう/という. つらあ is 面【つら】 (face) with elongated vowel あ. This elongated vowel sometimes implies an omitted particle (in this case, 面を見てみたい).