While working on Mascot serials, Canutt practiced and perfected his most famous stunts, including the drop from a stagecoach that he would employ in John Ford's 1939 "Stagecoach". That famous stunt in "Stagecoach" was filmed on Lucerne Dry Lake, north of Lucerne Valley, California. He first did it in "Riders of the Dawn" in 1937 while doubling for Jack Randall. In his 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Steven Spielberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when stuntman Terry Leonard (doubling for Harrison Ford) 'dropped' from the front of a German transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench) and then climbed up the back and round to the front again.