In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly, working for Joseph Pulitzer, feigns mental illness to go undercover in notorious Blackwell's Island, a mental institution for women, to expose corruption, abuse, and murder.
The movie 10 DAYS IN A MADHOUSE THE NELLIE BLY STORY is based on Nellie Blys 1887 book of the same title. The film follows 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly (Caroline Barry) as she embarks on her first undercover assignment for world-famous newspaper editor Joseph Pulitzer. Bly elaborately feigns insanity and gets herself arrested and declared insane before a judge in order to go undercover into Blackwells Island Insane Asylum for women, run by E.C. Dent (Christopher Lambert). Behind the thick walls and bars of the asylum, Nellie Bly, facing life threatening peril, sets out to expose institutional corruption, abuse and murder. Blys article launches eleven investigations by judicial courts, including the grand jury, that ultimately leads to the successful shutdown of Blackwells Asylum. Nellie Bly is the first woman in history to write a serious investigative front page news story.
