Deformed man friends with kid?

[akiratubo]

I think I saw this around the late 1980s or so.  A little kid made friends with a deformed man who wore a trench coat and a mask, it was either a gas mask or a plague doctor mask.  That's really all I remember, aside from it being pretty boring.

[superillusion]

The Man Without a Face (1993) with Mel Gibson.

[BoyScoutKevin]

The Man Without a Face (1993) with Mel Gibson.

If this is the film the original poster is asking about, then it is loosely based upon the 1972 juvenile novel by Isabelle Holland. I say loosely, because the film downplays the implied suggestion in the novel, that the man and the boy--at least once--engaged in sex. Working where I was at the time, I can still remember how controversial that idea was.