Live Entertainment Inc., a Van Nuys videocassette...

Live Entertainment Inc., a Van Nuys videocassette distributor and retailer, appointed David A. Mount as chief executive and a member of its board of directors. Mount, president and chief executive of Live’s home video subsidiary, succeeds Wayne Patterson, who resigned from Live earlier this month.

Alan J. Hirschfield, a Live director, replaced Patterson as Live chairman on a temporary basis.

Separately, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. said it lowered its rating on $110 million of Live’s senior notes due 1999 to CAA from B3. The debt rating agency said the action was taken because of “serious deterioration in the company’s financial results in the first nine months of 1991, which have reduced the company’s liquidity.”

Live and its 53% owner, Carolco Pictures Inc., earlier this month canceled plans to merge in a stock swap because sharp declines in Carolco’s stock price would have made the merger more expensive for the movie production company. Patterson resigned a few days before the deal was called off.