Marnie & Alfred from a blog: ...Hitchcock connects himself to Marnie. After the(his) terrifying incident in the jail, Hitchcock became afraid of Police. He never learned how to drive the car. In Dick Cavett Interview, Alfred Hitchcock said he is still terrified of Policemen. And this interview was in 1972. So Hitchcock was around the age of 73. After the incident in the flashback, Marnie became afraid of Red Color with White Background. And she started hating men after that incident. Hitchcock started reading stories written by Edgar Allan Poe when he was sixteen. In a 1960 article Hitchcock noted "...it's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films. Edgar Allen Poe devoted himself to writing stories in which his characters are subject to psychological terror. The character Marnie is a great example.